Daniel Morse

Born in Honolulu HI, Daniel Morse was raised on every sort of music from Bob Marley to Beethoven and Paul Simon to Prokofiev. Combined with the pervasive multiculturalism of Hawaii, his background has given him a truly egalitarian outlook towards music, through which he sees that all styles and genres are somehow valid and worthwhile.

After spending high school playing electric bass in heavy metal and blues bands, he went on to receive his bachelor’s degree in music with College Honors from the University of Illinois at Chicago, where he studied with Richard Billingham. Returning home to Hawaii, he had an extended stint as a SCUBA instructor before returning to school to obtain a master’s degree in Music Composition at the University of Hawaii, studying with Takeo Kudo, Donald Reid Womack, and Byron Yasui. Morse completed his PhD in music composition at Queen’s University Belfast in Northern Ireland, where he studied with Piers Hellawell and Michael Alcorn.

His compositional interests encompass both electroacoustic and instrumental music. He is particularly interested in the use of musical contexts, both created and inherited. His compositional process is driven by a dialectic between logic and emotion. He also has an abiding interest in cross-cultural composition, and strives for true synthesis when utilizing elements of non-western musics. Notable achievements include: the release of Tsuki no Uta (aka Reflection), recorded by Izumi Fujikawa, on Healing Fugu Records; the broadcast of Nachtlied (written for the Ulster Youth Choir) on BBC Radio 3; the scoring of Predestination (predestinationgame.com), a space strategy computer game which enjoyed a hugely successful Kickstarter campaign and is close to full release.

Morse lives in the mountains of the Inland Northwest, where he enjoys the peace and tranquility of the woods with his family.