Dan Trueman Tickets

Dan Trueman is a composer, fiddle player, improviser, new instrument creator and software designer. He plays the violin and the Norwegian Hardanger fiddle. Trueman studied physics at Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota, composition and theory at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music in Cincinnati and composition at Princeton University. He taught composition at Columbia, Colgate, and since 2002, at Princeton. As a performer, Trueman has played at both contemporary and folk music festivals, among them Bang on a Can and Den Norske Folkemusikkveka. Trueman has written for his own ensembles, Interface (which also includes Curtis Bahn and Tomie Hahn) and the Princeton Laptop Orchestra (also known as PLOrk, which he co-founded with Perry Cook), as well as the Brentano, Daedalus, Cassatt and Amernet string quartets, Non Sequitur, So Percussion and others. He has received awards from the Guggenheim (2006) and MacArthur Foundations (2008 Digital Media and Learning Award).

Dan's current and recent projects include: a new work for fiddler Caoimhín Ó Raghallaigh and the sinfonietta Contemporaneous; the bitKlavier (Prepared Digital Piano) project; a double-quartet for So Percussion and the JACK Quartet, commissioned by the Barlow Foundation; a collaborative work with Mark DeChiazza and the PRISM Quartet; Olagón -- an evening length work in collaboration with singer Iarla Ó Lionáird, poet Paul Muldoon, and eighth blackbird; a collaborative dance project with choreographer Rebecca Lazier and scientist Naomi Leonard; ongoing collaborations with Irish fiddler Caoimhín Ó Raghallaigh and guitarist Monica Mugan (Trollstilt). His recent albums with Adam Sliwinski (Nostalgic Synchronic), Ó Raghallaigh (Laghdú) and So Percussion (neither Anvil nor Pulley) have met with wide acclaim. 

His explorations have ranged from the oldest to the newest technologies; Dan co-founded the Princeton Laptop Orchestra, the first ensemble of its size and kind that has led to the formation of similarly inspired ensembles across the world, from Oslo to Dublin, to Stanford and Bangkok. Dan's compositional work reflects this complex and broad range of activities, exploring rhythmic connections between traditional dance music and machines, for instance, or engaging with the unusual phrasing, tuning and ornamentation of the traditional Norwegian music while trying to discover new music that is singularly inspired by, and only possible with, new digital instruments that he designs and constructs. His tools of the trade are the first-of-its-kind Hardanger d'Amore fiddle by Salve Hakedal (played with a beautiful baroque bow by Michel Jamonneau), and the ChucK music programming language by Ge Wang. 

Dan's work has been recognized by fellowships, grants, commissions, and awards from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Barlow Endowment, the Bessies, the Fulbright Commission, the American Composers Forum, the American Council of Learned Societies, Meet the Composer, among others. He is Professor of Music and Director of the Princeton Sound Kitchen at Princeton University, where he teaches counterpoint, electronic music, and composition.