Daniel E. Gawthrop

Daniel E. Gawthrop (born 1949 in Fort Wayne, Indiana) is an American composer, primarily of choral music. His output also includes a substantial body of works for the organ^[1] as well as orchestral and instrumental works. He has been the recipient of over one hundred commissions to write original music. His works have been published by Warner Brothers, Theodore Presser, Sacred Music Press, and others.

Biography

Gawthrop attended Michigan State University, and graduated from Brigham Young University with a Bachelor of Music degree in 1988.^[2]

He served for three years as Composer-in-Residence to the Fairfax Symphony Orchestra (of Fairfax, Virginia, a suburb of Washington, D.C.) and has been the recipient of four grants from the Barlow Endowment for Musical Composition. He has been commissioned by various institutions including the American Choral Directors Association through their Brock Commission,^[3] and has had works première in the Concert Hall of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the Salt Lake City Mormon Tabernacle, and Washington National Cathedral. His choral pieces have been performed and recorded by such eminent ensembles as the United States Air Force Singing Sergeants, the Gregg Smith Singers, the Turtle Creek Chorale, the Paul Hill Chorale, the American Boychoir, the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, the Cathedral Choral Society (of Washington National Cathedral), Thomas Circle Singers, and hundreds of other groups in the U.S. and abroad. From 1985-1987 Gawthrop worked as a radio announcer for KBYU.

In 1991, he established his own publishing company, Dunstan House. "I get to control what pieces are published, which ones stay in print, how they are marketed and what their price will be. The cons are that owning it all means funding it all, risking it all, mastering it all and endlessly worrying about it all."^[4]

In addition to his work as a composer, Gawthrop has been active as a broadcaster, clinician and adjudicator, organist, conductor, teacher and writer, including a period as music critic for The Washington Post. Gawthrop is a Life Member of the American Choral Directors Association, a member of the American Guild of Organists, and a member of Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia, the music fraternity, of which is the 2018 Charles E. Lutton Man of Music Award recipient.

The bulk of his organ works have been recorded on two commercially available CDs. The first, Exultate, was performed by Mary Mozelle on the Princeton University Chapel organ. The second disc, Like a Fire, was performed by David Pickering on the Bales Recital Hall organ at the University of Kansas at Lawrence. The Utah State University Chamber Choir, conducted by Cory Evans, recorded a CD containing much of Gawthop's choral work, called Show Me Thy Ways, and also a CD of choral works, Sing Me to Heaven.

From 2015 to present, Gawthrop is the Composer-In-Residence of Renaissance Men, New England's professional male vocal chamber ensemble. The ensemble has commissioned multiple works and has recorded and performed the majority of Gawthrop's men's ensemble repertoire.

Gawthrop resided for some time in southern Idaho with his wife. He also was for a time a resident of Jonesborogh, Tennessee.^[5] Gawthrop is a Latter-day Saint.

References

External links

• Dunstan House website