Daniel Orsen is a member of the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra. His tenure with the SPCO began by performing as soloist in Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante at the beginning of the 2022-2023 season.

Daniel is co-creator of Wagner’s Nightmare: a tongue-in-cheek retrospective on Richard Wagner’s life, work, and legacy. The culmination of Wagner’s Nightmare is the album, Wagner's Nightmare - every piece on the album is connected in someway to something or someone whom Wagner did not like, and featured the rarely heard Viola Alta, a 19-inch mega viola Wagner specified for use in his orchestra at Bayreuth.

Prior to joining the SPCO, Daniel lived for six years in Boston, where he performed with A Far Cry, the BSO,  Fermata Chamber Soloists, and the Phoenix Chamber Orchestra, and ran Jamaica Plain Chamber Music from 2019-2022.

As soloist, Daniel has performed Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante and Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 6 with the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, the Stamitz Viola Concerto with the Fermata Chamber Soloists, Vaughn William’s Christmas Suite with Pittsburgh Civic Orchestra, and Thea Musgrave’s Lamenting Ariadne with the Oberlin Contemporary Music Ensemble. His chamber festival credits include Oak Hill, Krzyzowa, Ravinia, Verbier, Prussia Cove and the Perlman Music Program.

Daniel has a keen interest in cultural and intellectual history which has manifested itself not only in Wagner’s Nightmare, but in essays published by The Anglican Way, CREATED, and The Journal of the American Viola Society. 

Daniel is a native of Pittsburgh, PA. He was taught and mentored by members of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, Credo, and the Perlman Music Program before his studies at the Oberlin Conservatory with Peter Slowik and the New England Conservatory with Kim Kashkashian. He plays on a 2013 Philip Injeian viola and a 2014 Benoit Rolland bow, both specially made for him.

For more information about Daniel, please visit his website.