Daniel Orsen

Violist Daniel Orsen joined The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra in the 2022.23 season. He began his tenure with the SPCO performing Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante for Violin and Viola in September. During six years in Boston, Orsen performed with A Far Cry, the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Fermata Chamber Soloists, and the Phoenix Chamber Orchestra, and he ran Jamaica Plain Chamber Music from 2019-2022. Additionally, he was Guest Solo Violist with the Arctic Philharmonic in Norway during the 2018.19 season. Festival credits include Krzyzowa, Ravinia, Verbier, Prussia Cove, Oak Hill and the Perlman Music Program.

Orsen has a keen interest in culture and intellectual history, which is currently manifesting itself in Wagner’s Nightmare: a tongue-in-cheek exploration of Richard Wagner’s life, work, and legacy, which will culminate in an album of music Wagner would not like. Wagner’s Nightmare is Orsen’s second collaboration with pianist Pierre Nicolas Colombat, after their debut recording of Franz Schubert’s Arpeggione Sonata. The Wagner’s Nightmare album will be released in February 2023, via CD and NFT only. His writing has also been published in The Anglican Way and The Journal of the American Viola Society. Orsen is a native of Pittsburgh, PA. He was taught and mentored by members of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, Credo, and the Perlman Music Program before his studies at the Oberlin Conservatory with Peter Slowik and the New England Conservatory with Kim Kashkashian. He plays on a 2013 Philip Injeian viola and a 2014 Benoit Rolland bow, both specially made for him.