College of the Canyons (COC) music instructor Daniel Catan marches to a different beat. And while some of his students know a bit about his claim to fame as a composer, others don’t. However, in time, as the 58-year-old composer builds on his existing musical works for operas and symphonies, they will, no doubt realize how lucky they were to have learned from a man with an extraordinary passion and talent for composing music.
Catan, a nomad who has traveled the world over and taken in the music of various cultures including the one nearest and dearest to his own heritage, Mexican.
“There’s been a huge influence from music south of the border on music history. In the early days, 400 years ago, the European influences melded with the Spanish, Moorish and African sounds,” said Catan.
In a recent world premiere of one of his works, Caribbean Airs was performed by the Pacific Symphony at the Orange County Performing Arts Center.
Catan’s Cuban sounds surprised the usually staid music lovers at the 2007 American Composers Festival.
“It’s delicious music to dance to. The three-movement symphonic composition uses instruments you don’t normally hear played in a symphony, such as maracas, conga drums, bongos, a guiro (a rattle) and claves,” said Catan.
The graduate of the Universities of Sussex and Southampton who received his graduate degrees from Princeton University says that composing music can be very mystical and humbling.
“It forces you to stretch yourself into the really unknown. It’s frustrating and painful, but, I love it,” said Catan who has been commissioned to write an opera based on the movie Il Postino. It will be performed by two of the biggest tenors in the world, Placido Domingo and Rolando Villazon.
No stranger to opera, Catan has had two others he wrote that were produced titled, Rappaccini’s Daughter and Florencia en el Amazonas. He collaborated on the works with two Nobel Prize winning writers from Latin America, Octavio Paz and Gabriel Garcia Marquez, respectively.
“Sharing his talents with others is a joy,” says Catan who teaches composition, music history and theory at COC. In the fall, he’ll add Intro to Opera to his repertoire of classes. And yet, he will still, despite his hectic teaching schedule, continue to compose.
“When I start to write a piece, it’s always with me, even when I’m driving and walking, not just when I’m at the desk or piano. If I get stuck when I’m writing a passage, I just get up and go for a long walk to clear my mind,” says Catan. “I sometimes try to consciously take it out of me by reading a book or watching a film. When I first wake up, it is when I’m the freshest. It’s the time when my work is most fruitful, in the morning.”
Catan says he is most fulfilled when he is able to turn a phrase or write a nice melody. But, then comes another passion that rounds out his world, the love of his life who happens to also be his wife, Andrea, a harpist.
“She has better ears than I do,” says Catan, “She is my true joy and inspiration.”
It’s that heartfelt emotion mixed with his musings on music that should teach through osmosis a beautiful sentiment for his students that music makes life more meaningful.