FREE Courtroom Concert: featuring Daniel Orsen, viola

Daniel Orsen is a violist, teacher, and writer based in Saint Paul, Minnesota. Since 2022, he has been a member of the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, appearing as soloist with the ensemble in Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante and Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 6. In 2024, Orsen released his debut album, Wagner’s Nightmare, with pianist Pierre-Nicolas Colombat. A tongue-in-cheek retrospective on Richard Wagner, Wagner’s Nightmare gathers music inspired by people, places, and violas Wagner infamously despised. The album features the rarely heard Viola Alta, a 19-inch viola Wagner specified for use in his orchestra at Bayreuth.

Orsen would not have become a violist without Beethoven’s sixteen string quartets. Chamber music remains the guiding force of his vocation, shaping his work at festivals including Krzyżowa, Ravinia, Verbier, Oak Hill, and the Perlman Music Program. His collaborators include Itzhak Perlman, Kim Kashkashian, and Midori Goto. Orsen is on faculty at the Credo Festival, where he first encountered chamber music (the Mendelssohn Octet) as a student. He also teaches at the Northern Lights Chamber Music Institute and the Laurel School of Music, and maintains a private studio in Saint Paul, Minnesota.

Alongside his performing and teaching career, Orsen is an active writer. His work has appeared in The Strad, The Journal of the American Viola Society, The Anglican Way, and CREATED. He also publishes an arcane Substack reviewing classical CDs. Originally from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Orsen studied at the Oberlin Conservatory with Peter Slowik and the New England Conservatory with Kim Kashkashian. He performs on a 2013 Philip Injeian viola and a 2014 Benoit Rolland bow, both made specifically for him.