Biografia
Born in Pendleton, Indiana, George Daugherty attended Butler University Jordan College of Music, Indiana University, and The University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music. At the age of 19, he formed The Pendleton Festival Symphony, which grew into a professional summer orchestra which flourished in Indiana during the late 1970s and early 1980's, and brought a diverse slate of international guests artists to perform with it in Central Indiana, including Metropolitan Opera singers Roberta Peters and Rosalind Elias, violinist Eugene Fodor, principal dancers and ensembles from The New York City Ballet, The American Ballet Theatre, and The Joffrey Ballet, and major choral groups including The Harvard Glee Club. The Pendleton Festival Symphony was supported during that period from major grants and funding from The Indiana Arts Commission, The National Endowment for the Arts, and Lilly Endowment.
A director/producer/conductor, he is known as one of the music world's most diverse artists. In addition to his 40-year conducting career which has included appearances with the world's leading orchestras, ballet companies, opera houses, and concert artists, Daugherty is also an Emmy Award winning / five-time Emmy nominated creator whose professional profile includes major credits as a director, writer, and producer for television, film, innovative and unique concerts, and the live theater. He has conducted on every continent of the world, but is perhaps best known for the creation of his cult hit film-and-live orchestra concerts "Bugs Bunny On Broadway" and "Bugs Bunny at the Symphony," which have played to almost two million audience members worldwide, celebrating the classic era of Warner Bros. animation and their inspired Carl Stalling orchestra scores.
As a director, writer, and producer of music-based television programs, Daugherty and producing partner David Wong have created several major productions for the ABC Television Network project, including a prime time animation-and-live action production of Sergei Prokofiev's Peter and The Wolf, which he created, co-wrote, conducted, and directed, and for which he won a Prime Time Emmy Award, as well as a Writer's Guild Award Nomination, and numerous other awards.
Daugherty and Wong also collaborated with The Joy Luck Club author Amy Tan on a television adaptation of her celebrated children's book The Chinese Siamese Cat. The Emmy Award-winning series debuted on PBS in the fall of 2001 as a daily-animated children's television series, propelled by PBS' unprecedented advance order for 80 segments. Daugherty executive produced, and also wrote a large number of the animated tales. The series was nominated for several Emmys, and won one.
Daugherty and Wong also received an Emmy nomination for Rhythm & Jam, his ABC television network of specials which taught the basics of music to a teenage audience. He has now received five Emmy nominations to date.
Daugherty has conducted for scores of major American and international symphony orchestras, ballet companies, and opera houses, including several sold-out engagements with The New York Philharmonic at Lincoln Center, as well as with The Royal Philharmonic Concert Orchestra (conducting an 18 city tour with Dame Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer), The Philadelphia Orchestra, The Cleveland Orchestra, The Seattle Symphony, The San Francisco Symphony, The Los Angeles Philharmonic (in 22 performances at The Hollywood Bowl), The National Symphony, The Sydney Symphony, American Ballet Theatre, The Sydney Opera House, The Munich State Opera Orchestra, The Munich State Opera Ballet, The Houston Symphony, The Fort Worth Symphony, The Pittsburgh Symphony, The National Arts Centre Orchestra, The Atlanta Symphony, The Cincinnati Symphony, The Vancouver Symphony, The Buffalo Philharmonic, The Louisville Orchestra, The Indianapolis Symphony, The Moscow Symphony, The Kremlin Palace Orchestra of The Russian Federation, The Kiev Ballet, The Grant Park Symphony Orchestra, The Columbus Symphony, The RCA Symphony Orchestra, The Saddlers Wells Royal Ballet, Mexico City's Bellas Artes Opera House, The Montreal Symphony, The Winnipeg Symphony, The Rochester Philharmonic, The New Orleans Symphony, The Venezuela Symphony, Mexico's Xalapa Symphony, The Oklahoma City Philharmonic, and major Italian opera houses in Rome, Florence, Turin, and Regio Emilia.
He is currently music director of London's new orchestra Sinfonia Britannia, which made it's debut at The Wales Millennium Centre in March, 2005, and has since appeared throughout the U.K., as well as a February, 2006 U.S. debut in San Francisco which the San Francisco Chronicle called "spectacular." His musical based on the life and music of Ivor Novello premiered at The Wales Millennium Centre in 2005, and will premiere on London's West End in September, 2006.
As a director, writer, and producer of music-based television programs, Daugherty and producing partner David Wong have created several major productions for the ABC Television Network project, including a prime time animation-and-live action production of Sergei Prokofiev's Peter and The Wolf, which he created, co-wrote, conducted, and directed, and for which he won a Prime Time Emmy Award. Daugherty and Wong also collaborated with The Joy Luck Club author Amy Tan on a television adaptation of her celebrated children's book The Chinese Siamese Cat. The Emmy Award-winning series debuted on PBS in the fall of 2001 as a daily-animated children's television series, propelled by PBS' unprecedented advance order for 80 segments. Daugherty executive produced, and also wrote a large number of the animated tales.
Daugherty and Wong also received an Emmy nomination for Rhythm & Jam, his ABC television network of specials which taught the basics of music to a teenage audience. He has now received five Emmy nominations to date.
In 1990, Daugherty created, directed, and conducted the hit Broadway musical Bugs Bunny On Broadway, a live-orchestra-and-film stage production which sold-out its extended run at New York's Gershwin Theatre on Broadway, and has since played to critical acclaim and sold-out houses all over the world.
