About Dan Blake

Since moving to New York in 2006, Dan Blake has become a leading figure in New York’s creative music scene. He tours internationally with Grammy-winner Esperanza Spalding’s, as well as the Grammy-nominated Julian Lage Group. Among his extensive discography is an appearance as a featured soloist on Anthony Braxton’s 2010 Trillium E opera (New Braxton House), and on Esperanza Spalding’s Grammy-winning Radio Music Society (Heads Up/Concord). His most recent release as leader, The Aquarian Suite (Brooklyn Jazz Underground Records) was listed by the NYC Jazz Record, The San Jose Mercury News, and Neue Zürcher Zeitung as among the best recordings of 2011/2012, with the Boston Phoenix calling it “one of the most ridiculously satisfying discs we’ve heard in some time.”

As an improviser, Dan Blake finds a voice within a wide variety of musical and multi-media projects within New York’s improvised music scene, collaborating regularly with such luminaries as Mary Halvorson, Leo Genovese, Lukas Ligeti, James Ilgenfritz, Hans Tammen, Ricardo Gallo, Peter Evans, and many others.

Dan Blake’s compositions have been recognized with support from The Jerome Fund, Meet the Composer, ASCAP, The John Lennon Songwriting Contest. In the 2013-2014 season, he will premier an evening-length multi-media work for string quartet and live animation, part of a year-long Jerome Fund commission he received to work with the Mivos quartet. His award-winning work First Beginnings for tenor recorder and electronics received its premier in at the 2011 Electronic Music Foundation, and he was also invited by the Dr. Faustus new music series to present a new work for piano and percussion in spring of 2013.

Dan Blake holds a Ph.D. in composition from the Graduate Center, City University of New York, where he received the Baisley Powell Elebash Fund for an ongoing research project examining New York City’s improvised music scene.

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