“The language is absolutely wonderful. The music is a mixture of, well, I suppose we would describe it as some of it is very American, in that it’s very direct. It’s got a touch of this … sort of the way people used to sing with shape notes, very direct. And at other times it’s more sort of a European approach.”

—Bob Chilcott, King’s Singers tenor, quoted in the Wisconsin State Journal, 27 October, 1995

Program Note:

Matching the allusive, maximal language of poet Paul Muldoon with a broad array of musical techniques and styles, The Waking Father moves seamlessly from hot-mic, 30s Mills Brothers radio-style delivery to operatic recitatives, from the soft, glowing 60s California Sound of The Beach Boys to the crystalline clarity of Lutheran hymnody; from the flowing, melismatic francophilia of Faure to the tight, session-singing 70s jazz sound of the Swingle Singers. The Waking Father is an emotionally generous, affectionate musical portrait of Paul Muldoon, with whom Hagen had already collaborated on several operas—and with whom he would proceed to create several more. Premiered at Ozawa Hall during the Tanglewood Music Festival by the King's Singers on July 27th, 1995, The Waking Father was originally published by Roger Dean Publishing Company. Composed in Sandpoint, Idaho and completed on August 15th, 1994, This second edition corrects a number of minor engraving mistakes in the first edition.

Selected Review:

"Daron Hagen's The Waking Father comes out of the richly detailed and expressive American choral tradition of Barber's Reincarnations and Rorem's Pilgrim Strangers, but it is a brilliantly original work in its own right — he has gotten under the skin of Paul Muldoon's complex but deeply heartfelt poems."

— Russell Platt, The New Yorker

“A contemporary collection of pieces by Daron Aric Hagen called The Waking Father brought visions of Samuel Barber to mind. Throughout, the audience was enthralled with the English accents and dry English humor engaged in the performance.”

—Emily Wray, The Daily Nebraskan, 5 February, 1996