Daron Hagen

Daron Aric Hagen (/ˈhɑːɡən/ HAH-gən; born November 4, 1961 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin) is an American composer, conductor, pianist, educator, librettist, and stage director of contemporary classical music and opera.

Daron Hagen grew up in New Berlin, a suburb west of Milwaukee. Hagen was the youngest of the three sons of Gwen Hagen, a visual artist, writer and advertising executive who studied creative writing with Mari Sandoz and enjoyed a successful advertising career as creative director of Exclusively Yours Magazine and Earl Hagen (an attorney). Hagen began composing prolifically in 1974, when his older brother Kevin gave him a recording and score of Benjamin Britten's Billy Budd. Two years later, at the age of fifteen, he conducted the premiere of his first orchestral work, a recording and score of which came to the attention of Leonard Bernstein, who enthusiastically urged Hagen to attend Juilliard to study with David Diamond. He studied piano with Adam Klescewski, and studied composition and conducting at the Wisconsin Conservatory of Music while attending Brookfield Central High School.

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