BIO
Daniel Fulmer, Composer
Daniel Fulmer is a composer of orchestral, chamber, vocal, and choral works. His recent orchestral composition, One Peace, was commissioned as a reflection of the current need for serenity, peace, and consolation in the world. Recorded on St. Patrick’s Day 2024 with Grammy Award winning flutist, Nestor Torres, the work is accessible on YouTube with releases on many digital platforms this past weekend.
Concerto for Alto Saxophone and Wind Symphony commissioned by Jacksonville University and supported by a grant from J. Shepherd, Jr. and Mary Ann Bryan Arts Endowment at the Community Foundation for Northeast Florida. Streamed online during the Covid pandemic. The work depicts Florida seascapes and the great storms we have sustained as a community. It also speaks to the journey one endures through adversity and tribulation in trying times. Classical saxophone artist/soloist Patrick Meighan premiered the performance.
Fulmer has written many works for the voice, both in chamber and orchestra genres. Set me as a Seal is scores for soprano and chamber orchestra. Serafini, a Jacksonville-based trio (Soprano, Trumpet, and Piano) recently recorded songs O Quam Gloriosum, and Visions of Heaven on Centaur Records. The song cycle, Canticum Canticorum, (The Song of Solomon), scored for soprano, alto saxophone, cello, and piano premiered while serving as a Full professor at Edward Waters University in Jacksonville, Florida. Florida Songbook III is a setting of poems by two female poets who experienced South Florida in the early 20th-century. Vivian Laramore Rader was the Poet Laureate of Florida (1931-1975). The other poet, Ruby Pearl Patterson, wrote for the Miami Daily News and identified herself as “Princess Woxie Hatchee.” The composer set poems from her collection Songs From the Florida Everglades in his Florida Songbook cycles and in his Symphony No. 3 (Everglades). Florida Songbooks I, II, and III include poems of both poets and Fulmer’s personal writings.
Voyages, is a work based on the establishment of Fort Caroline by the French explorers Jean Ribault and Rene Laudonniere in the 1560s, and their conflict with the Spanish lead by Pedro Menendez who established Fort Matanzas and St. Augustine. The work sets 16th-century French writings and Spanish poetry to modern English and from Laudonniere’s Journal, Three Voyages. It also includes many species of birdsong dictated and transcribed to modern musical instruments and notation. This work was commissioned by Jacksonville University and premiered in April of 2017 with soprano Dr. Kimberly Beasley.
Fulmer has received many large-scale performances including Symphony No. 4 (In Memory of Loved Ones Who Passed Away), which premiered at Carnegie Hall in New York after September 11th, in April 2002, and read by the Jacksonville Symphony as part of their 2004 Fresh Ink Florida Composers Symposium. Among many past works Fulmer received premieres some include: Symphony No. 2 for soprano and orchestra, inspired by Florida ocean waves and storms with a waterspout graphically depicted in the conductor’s score. Concertante Borealis is a musical response upon experiencing the aurora borealis while living in North Dakota. It is scored for alto, tenor saxophone, piano, string orchestra, harp, celesta, and percussion. The composition premiered with prints on-screen of a well-respected photographer of the auroras.
Other works include Prophecy: The Opening of the Seventh Seal, for large orchestra, a reflection on world events. Symphony No. 5 (An Ocean Symphony) Growing up in Florida, the ocean, seascapes, and beaches have provided a substantial amount of inspiration as an artist. Much of the development material unfolded when walking the seashore at night, as the late moonlight illuminated the beach with a bright glow. Visiting the ocean on overcast days with strong tides and raging waves from storms at sea provided dynamic portions of Symphony No. 2 and Symphony No. 5. In the “sea of life” one faces many storms, trials, and tribulations seemingly without end. Searching for a life raft, we can only find that we are washed up on the shorelines of life, perhaps even shipwrecked. Serenity and hope is on the horizon. There is a means to an end, light at the end of the journey. Restitution and deliverance result in traveling through the storm.
Lamentum, Music of Mourning and Consolation, scored for soprano, chorus and chamber orchestra, is a setting of Lamentations from the Latin Vulgate and the Libera Me from the requiem mass. The work is dedicated to those fallen in war and the composer’s uncle, MIA WWII, who was accounted for in 2018.. His oratorio, The Unveiling, sets text from the Book of Revelation (Ch. 1-5) and the Tuba Mirum, from the requiem mass.
Fulmer’s opera, Spring Cove, is based on North Florida natural surroundings, history, geographical locations, people, folklore, mysticism, ancient writings, and recent topics of scientific discovery. The story, libretto, and music are original, comprehensively bringing all these aspects of Florida together. As an extension to previous original compositions about Florida, this work contains environmental sounds, birdsongs, and references to seascapes. It is set in the style of a contemporary science fiction psychological thriller with a stellar ending of beauty, serenity, and hope.
His doctoral research, Composition as a Generative Process, is included in the widely used music psychology textbook.
One Peace Audio/Videography-Florida Youth Orchestra, Grammy Flutist Nestor Torres
https://youtu.be/XlAKj18EmJ0?si=tef4XwQU110c9QIe
One Peace Landing Page/ Audio- Florida Youth Orchestra, Grammy Flutist Nestor Torres