Daniel Chen

Compositions

Selected works with duration, program notes, and links to recordings and scores where available.

“The New World”

Daniel Ruo Chen

Duration
4 minutes
Program notes
Adapted from Witter Bynner’s poem “The New World,” the work reflects on renewal after loss: confronting patterns that feel hollow, then moving toward a more hopeful, intentional future. The music underscores perseverance—diminished harmonies where text and emotion align with struggle, then a gradual shift toward brighter, major sonorities as a metaphor for hope.
Performed by
New York Virtuoso Singers

Media: Recording · Score

“Falling Dreams”

Daniel Ruo Chen

Duration
3 minutes
Program notes
“Falling Dreams” places the listener between waking and sleep: layered textures slow the sense of time and soften external noise. Material unfolds as half-remembered fragments, moving inward toward stillness. The piece is conceived as an environment as much as a linear statement.

Media: Recording · Score

“No Measure of Time”

Daniel Ruo Chen

Duration
Approximately 3 minutes
Program notes
“No Measure of Time” sets aside conventional meter and predictable pulse; the music unfolds without a clock-driven arc. Sound is treated as plastic—allowed to breathe, drift, and re-form—so the listener can inhabit the present rather than anticipate formal closure. The work argues for freedom from rigid temporal scaffolding as a valid musical stance.

Media: Recording · Score

Last updated: 2026