Daniel Ernest Forrest Jr. is an American composer, pianist, educator, and music editor.
Biography
Dan Forrest was born in Breesport, New York, and began piano lessons with his elementary schoolmusic teacher at age eight. In high school Forrest won numerous piano awards, accompanied honors choirs, and performed the Grieg Piano Concerto with the Elmira Symphony. He majored in piano at Bob Jones University, earning a B.Mus. and an M.Mus. in Piano Performance, studying advanced theory and composition with Joan Pinkston and Dwight Gustafson. After teaching piano in South Carolina for three years, he moved to Kansas where he earned a D.M.A. in composition from the University of Kansas, studying with wind band composer James Barnes. Forrest also studied with Alice Parker, whom he counts as a foremost influence. Forrest's compositions include choral, instrumental, orchestral, and wind band works. His music appears in the catalogs of numerous publishers, primarily and . In 2018, he began self-publishing his own concert music , which is distributed by Beckenhorst Press. His published works have sold millions of copies worldwide. Forrest's choral works have received the ASCAPMorton Gould Young Composer's Award, the ACDA Raymond Brock Award, a Meet The Composer grant, the University of Kansas Cius Award, the ALCM Raabe Prize,. Forrest's music has been performed in leading venues around the world including Carnegie Hall, the Lincoln Center, NPR's Performance Today, and on the BBC Proms. A review in The Salt Lake Tribune referred to Forrest's "superb choral writing" and gave as an example his arrangement of "The First Noel," which it said was "full of spine-tingling moments." Forrest is one of a small number of composers whose works have been included in both Teaching Music Through Performance in Choir and Teaching Music Through Performance In Band. Perhaps Forrest's best known work is Requiem for the Living, having received several hundred performances worldwide. His other major works, Jubilate Deo and LUX: The Dawn From On High have also been widely performed. Forrest taught music theory and composition at The University of Kansas as a graduate assistant from 2004 to 2007, and at Bob Jones University from 2007 to 2012, where he served as chairman of the department of music theory and composition. He now serves as co-editor at Beckenhorst Press, regularly teaches composition lessons and masterclasses, and speaks about composing, music-making, aesthetics, music publishing, and the music business in guest-artist residencies with universities and choirs in the US and abroad. He also serves as Artist-in-Residence at Mitchell Road Presbyterian Church, Greenville, SC.
Style
Forrest is equally at home in both concert music and church music, and he composes for ensembles across the spectrum of choral music. His background in academia and experience with professional choirs and orchestras allows him to write complex music that requires sophisticated performers, yet he also writes music accessible for amateur choirs. He is known for his skill in writing melodic lines for all voices and instruments, which he attributes to his study with Alice Parker and James Barnes. His choral works are known for their sensitivity to the nuances, speech rhythms, and deeper meanings of their texts. Additionally, his skill as a pianist and his training and experience in instrumentation/orchestration result in accompaniments that are known for their idiomatic writing and effective, impactful, and efficient scoring.
Awards
2004 John Ness Beck Foundation, first place. His winning composition was a choral setting of "The King of Love My Shepherd Is".
2005 American Choral Directors Association Raymond Brock Composition Competition. His winning piece, "Selah", was premiered at the ACDA convention in 2006.
2006 ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composers Award for selected movements from Words From Paradise, an extended work for a cappella choir. He was presented his award at the Lincoln Center.
2009 John Ness Beck Foundation, first place.
2009 Raabe Prize, Association of Lutheran Church Musicians, for his In Paradisum
2009 Frank Ticheli International Wind Band Composition Contest, Finalist.
Numerous other awards from composition contests, musical societies, honorary memberships, etc.
Notable performances
On February 11, 2007, Forrest's music was performed in Carnegie Hall for the first time, with the world premiere of "Arise, Shine!". His works are now performed there on a regular basis.
On March 24, 2013 Forrest's "Requiem for the Living" was premiered as a commissioned work by The Hickory Choral Society, in honor of the organization's 35th anniversary.
In spring 2016, Forrest's Jubilate Deo was premiered as a commissioned work by the Indianapolis Children's Choirs, in honor of founder Henry Leck's retirement.
In 2016, Forrest was commissioned by Duke University Chapel to arrange "The Church's One Foundation" for the re-opening of the Chapel after rehabilitation of its limestone ceiling and replacement of its roof.
In fall 2017, Forrest's LUX: The Dawn From On High was premiered as a commissioned work by the and Symphony, conducted by Bingham Vick, Jr.
In September 2019, Forrest's setting of "And Can It Be?" was performed on the last night of the 2019 BBC Proms series, in the Northern Ireland Proms in the Park concert.
