University Advancement

Public Relations and Strategic Communications

MEDIA RELEASE

CSUN Music Professor Emeritus Daniel Kessner is
Headed to Norway on His Second Fulbright

(NORTHRIDGE, Calif., Oct. 23, 2007) — Cal State Northridge music professor emeritus Daniel Kessner, a composer, conductor and flutist, has won a second prestigious Fulbright award. He is scheduled to spend two weeks teaching, lecturing and performing at the University of Science and Technology in Trondheim, Norway.

"The first event is a flute and piano recital, playing works by American and Latin American composers, which they know very little of in Norway," said Kessner, a Fulbright Senior Specialist.

As part of his composer training, he has studied nearly every instrument found in an orchestra; however, as a performer he specializes in flutes, alto and bass. He will play in the recital with his wife, Dolly Eugenio Kessner, a pianist, who chairs the music and dance department at Moorpark College, and has been awarded an identical Fulbright grant.

In Norway from Oct. 27 through Nov. 11, the Kessners will work with students individually, and in small groups: he with composers and flutists; she with pianists and chamber musicians. They will perform together, and also give several groups of workshops and lectures, largely about contemporary American concert music. They also expect to do a workshop and concert with the Trondheim Sinfonietta, a professional ensemble that will play several of his compositions. His wife will perform as a member of that ensemble.

Husbands and wives are rarely chosen for the same Fulbright award to the same country, but it is not unprecedented. The Fulbright Program annually sends abroad university faculty and college students as well as teachers from elementary, middle and high school, and brings to the U.S. similarly outstanding educators and students. This international exchange, founded in 1946 to encourage mutual understanding, is sponsored by the State Department and funded by Congress. Senior Specialists, like the Kessners, are either university faculty members or other professionals who participate in short-term, academic exchanges.

"It’s huge," Daniel Kessner said of the Fulbright. "You get to go to interesting places, and spend some intensive time with their students and faculty, which is always a great exchange."

As a Fulbright Senior Scholar in 2003, Kessner spent a semester lecturing, composing, conducting, performing and presenting some of his original music at the Musikhochschule (music school) in Trossingen, Germany.

"It turned out to be a great springboard for other activities," he said, pointing to his 11 performances at European concerts and festivals while he was based in Germany.

Kessner speaks, reads and writes German, Italian, Spanish, and some Romanian. He is fluent in French, and has given music lectures in several languages. "I’ve spent nearly three years in Europe," he said, adding that he and his wife perform there every summer.

"Even though a lot of people in the big cities speak English," he explained, "there are a lot more people who don’t, especially when you get out of the big cities."

He is currently studying Norwegian, enough to read menus and signs while there. This will be his first trip to that Scandinavian nation, although he said he has been to nearly every other country in Europe.

He chose the University of Science and Technology in central Norway for this award because a music professor from that school came to CSUN on a Fulbright three years ago. They became friends, Kessner said, and started exchanging music scores.

A prolific composer, he has produced more than 98 compositions including 12 orchestral works, nine choral and stage works, eight pieces for symphonic band and more than 65 works for chamber ensembles, solos, and duos. His music has been performed more than 500 times internationally, nationally, regionally and locally, including by the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra—for whom he gives pre-concert lectures. A piece, Interconcerto, that he wrote for close friends and colleagues, CSUN music professor and clarinetist Julia Heinen and her husband, Richard Kravchak, an oboist who teaches at Cal State University, Dominguez Hills, will be performed by them during a Cal State Northridge Wind Ensemble concert on Dec. 1 in the Campus Theatre.

Kessner has also recorded extensively on three labels. Currently working with Capstone Records, he expects to complete a new CD within the next year.

Music has always been a part of his life. "I grew up with music. My mother was a pianist, and other family members were musicians," said Kessner, who is a Los Angeles native. He began studying piano at age five, switched to other instruments and played in bands and orchestras all through school. He began composing while a young teenager.

At CSUN, Kessner taught music composition and theory from 1970 through 2005. The founder and director of "The Discovery Players" (formerly known as "New Music Ensemble"), he also directed several additional ensembles. During his final year at the university, he also served as guest conductor of the Moorpark Symphony Orchestra.

Since his retirement, he has spent one semester teaching at the University of Hawaii, and another at the Thornton School of Music at the University of Southern California, both in 2006. He also has performed frequently, primarily in Europe.

Despite his retirement, Kessner meets occasionally with composition students at CSUN, and has not ruled out teaching again, perhaps, part-time.

When he is not composing, conducting, playing, recording, lecturing or attending concerts, he enjoys listening mostly to classical music of all periods and to some world music and jazz.