The music of Luke Dahn has been called "terrific, awfully good" (Sequenza 21) and "blessed with a vigorous rhythmic sense" (Fanfare), and has been performed by groups such as the Moscow Conservatory Studio for New Music, the League of Composers/ISCM, the NODUS Ensemble, the NEXTET Ensemble, Composers Inc., the University of Iowa Center for New Music and the violin/piano duo Wolfgang David and David Gompper. Venues have included Rachmaninoff Hall (Moscow), the Estonia Academy of Music (Tallinn), the Frankfurter KuenstlerKlub, Harvard University’s Memorial Church, the Miami ISCM Festival Series and the N.E.O.N. (Nevada Encounters of New Music) Festival at which he was awarded the Max Di Julio Prize.
Several of his works are available on the Albany label—Penumbrae for clarinet, violin, viola, cello and piano has been recorded by the Moscow Conservatory’s Studio for New Music, Downward Courses and Traces has been recorded by pianist Ryan Fogg on a new 2011 release, and Edges for large ensemble has been recorded by the University of Iowa’s Center for New Music.
Dahn teaches composition and music theory at Northwestern College in Orange City, Iowa, where he also serves as chair of the music department. In addition, he is co–founder and serves as co–artistic director of Ensemble Périphérie, and also serves on the Board of Directors of the League of Composers/ISCM.
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News

In preparation for our October Carnegie Hall debut, Ensemble Périphérie completed a encouragingly successful Spring 2013 concert season which featured works by David Gompper, Louis Karchin, Joseph Dangerfield, and Irina Dubkova. My own Calder Cadences is also featured on this program. Our Carnegie concert will be on Saturday, October 26 at 2:00pm in Carnegie’s Weill Hall and is part of the DCINY Distinguished Concert Artists Series. In addition, we just completed a successful Kickstarter campaign to help finance the trip to NYC.

In June 2013, I was elected to the Board of Directors of the League of Composers/ISCM. It will be an honor to serve in this capacity!

Penumbrae received its New York premiere by the League of Composers Chamber Players on February 24, 2013 at the Tenri Cultural Institute.

New content added to website includes my recently completed (October 2012) tenure paper on musical spatiality and the emotionally–engaging practice of musical worship, and a chart indexing the chromatic harmony in Schubert’s Die schöne Müllerin, complete with Italian, French, German and Neapolitan (ice cream) flags!

Also new are four videos featuring excerpts from Bach’s cantatas. These videos were created for a lecture entitled "’Music that Drives Away the Devil’: the Catechetical Music of J. S. Bach" given at Northwestern College on March 21, 2012. Also added is new materials on my Course Materials page.

I was named the 2011 recipient of the Northwestern College Teaching Excellence Award! In other Northwesternly news, I have recently accepted the appointment of Chair of the Music Department.

The premiere performance of the orchestral version of Confessions of Saint Augustine was given in the spring of 2012 by soprano Michelle Crouch and the Coe College Orchestra, Joseph Dangerfield conducting. Many thanks to them for a fine performance!