Stan McDaniel

Idyll: Lyric Mood for Winds - flute, oboe, clarinet
Program Notes and RealAudio excerpt

Estel (Hope) - Solo Alto Recorder
Program Notes and RealAudio excerpt

In Memoriam Tolkien - Orchestral Suite
Program Notes and RealAudio excerpt

Saga of the White Mountains - Strings, Piano, Flute & Percussion
Program Notes and RealAudio excerpt

Images of Dune - Orchestra and Large Chorus
Program Notes and RealAudio excerpt

Duet 1993: "Remembrance" - Violin and Cello
Program Notes and RealAudio excerpt

My Musical Background

Lorraine Hazel Higbee (age 19)

My mother, Lorraine Hazel McDaniel (née Higbee), was a very fine pianist and a piano teacher. She could play marvelously in both classical and popular styles. I recall many, many days when she would entertain family and friends whizzing through the hits of the day including showpieces like "Dizzy Fingers" and "Nola" (this was in the 1940's). Somehow I seem to have inherited her musical sensitivity (but not her performing skills), as at an early age I began composing original music at the piano. An assessment test I took before entering college showed that I was high in musical talent, so I entered undergraduate school as a music major (1949). After two years, however, I developed a consuming interest in philosophy and switched to a philosophy major.

It was during these college years, however, that my musical inclinations developed. Although I had an omnivorous appetite for classical music of all eras and styles, eventually it was the music of Sibelius, followed closely by that of Frederick Delius and somewhat later by Carl Orff, that directly impacted my own sense of musical form and style. Above all I aspire to create beauty in melodic line, and especially in the interplay of melodic lines (counterpoint). A strong influence has also been the music of the American composer Howard Hanson, particularly in the use of open harmonies (based on perfect intervals and creating a "primitive" feeling) and flexible modes or scales.

During my years as a music major, I studied composition with an inspiring teacher and consummate musician named H. Klyne Headley, who (although now forgotten) at that time was quite well known as a composer, conductor and concert pianist. It was he who gave me skills for serious musical composition. Although I pursued a career in philosophy, I continued to compose music, bits here and there, and even one or two major pieces over the years, based on further reading and experience as time permitted. I made efforts at self-publishing, and in 1965-66 two of my pieces, "The White Tree" and "Estel" (Hope) for solo alto recorder, were received favorably, the first by a laudatory review in The American Recorder magazine (1965) and the second in a letter from the outstanding professional recorder artist Franz Bruggen, who called "Estel" "a real contribution to the modern recorder repertoire."

Despite this encouragement, nothing significant happened with these pieces, or indeed any of the other music I wrote, for a very long time. Then in 1977, on the occasion of the passing away of the great fantasy writer and philologist J.R.R. Tolkien, I was asked to provide music for a memorial program at the annual OCTOCON science fiction convention in Santa Rosa, CA. This resulted in the orchestral suite In Memoriam Tolkien for chamber orchestra and chorus. With the advent of computers and music notation programs (I use the Sibelius software), I was able to publish several more of my pieces, most for recorders but also a newly orchestrated and expanded version of my 1962 composition Saga of the White Mountains, originally written for piano and alto recorder and now re-scored for strings, piano, percussion and flute.

I have recently completed a re-orchestration of In Memoriam Tolkien and a revision and expansion of Images of Dune,, the latter having been originally written for the 1978 OCTOCON convention honoring Dune author Frank Herbert, a concert which he attended. As time permits I will be placing more of my work on this site.

Stan McDaniel