Jonathan Daniel

Weird, whimsical, philosophical. Started out as the dorky small-town brown kid who plays classical piano. Now an openly gay, award-winning, multidisciplinary musician and skeptic-humanist academic who explores new sounds, new experiences, and new ideas through music and media.

Because of my background in philosophy and the liberal arts, my work involves communicating with ideas and society in modes both abstract and concrete. And as a musicologist, I use my historical and philosophical inquiry into music, beauty, and aesthetics to inform that communication, whether I’m composing, performing, writing, or creating social content.

Thus, you might find me singing classical music in a professional or academic choir, or writing about the need for diversity of thought and experiences in classical music and academia, or composing contemporary-classical music about the experience of thinking critically through cognitive dissonance or of living as a sexual or intellectual minority, or using social-media branding to talk about health, sex-positivity, vulnerability, and self-love in the gay male community.

Will be studying abroad and traveling in the U.K. and elsewhere in Europe from October 2017 to June 2018. Would love to collaborate with other artists and thinkers (especially poets, film/media artists, and electronic producers) to create something new, do something on social media, etc. Looking to learn, try new things, and diversify my content.