About Don
 
Donald Hagar is a composer whose music spans a wide range of genres, from solo works to opera, music which has been described as fresh, rhythmically exciting, exhaustively inventive, imaginative and clear in formal design. Reviewers for the Boston Globe have called his music “intimate,” “finely structured” and “perky.”

Hagar’s works have been performed by such ensembles and soloists as ALEA III, Boston Composers String Quartet, NuBotl Chamber Players, Wellesley Symphony Orchestra, Dominique LaBelle, Nancy Ellen Ogle, Patrick Dillery, and Geoffrey Burleson, among others. He has received commissions from The Carlisle Project for his ballet The Awesome Fear of Imminent Fall and from the New Boston Chamber Symphony for both First Impressions and Promenade on the Esplanade. His music has been featured in various festivals, including June In Buffalo, Society of Composers, Inc. National Convention, and the New England Conservatory Extension Division New Music Festival. In 2004, selections from his opera Inspiration were performed in New York City Opera’s VOX Showcase, conducted by George Manahan.

Heard on both sides of the Atlantic in theaters as well as on radio and television, Hagar’s music has been recorded on Capstone Records and is published by Earnestly Music and Dorn Publications. Among the organizations that have honored Hagar with awards and grants have been ASCAP (Young Composers Award), Off-Off Broadway Review, Kappa Gamma Psi, American Music Center, Meet the Composer, and the Bossak/Heilbron Charitable Foundation.

Originally from Elmira, NY, Donald Hagar received his B.M. cum laude from Ithaca College, where he studied with Karel Husa, and at the Ithaca College London Centre in England, with Justin Connolly. At Boston University, where he received his M.M., his principal composition teachers were Theodore Antoniou and Bernard Rands. Currently living in Brooklyn, NY, Don is a Project Arts Instrumental Music Teacher in the New York City Public Schools, teaching elementary school music and band. His New Blues for elementary band has been played by several bands in the New York City area.

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