Daniel A. Mahraun is a freelance choral conductor, lyric baritone, and editor/arranger of music for choirs. He currently sings with the Edmonds-based Evergreen Ensemble. Since 2019, he has served as Artistic Director of the Seattle Bach Choir, where his work focuses on the music of J. S. Bach and his Lutheran predecessors. Recent highlights of their programs include the complete Bach motets and the modern premiere of Johan Helmich Roman’s Funeral Music for King Fredrik I.
In his most recent academic appointment, Mahraun served as Director of Choral Activities at Minnesota State University Moorhead. In that capacity, he conducted the Concert Choir, Festival Men’s and Women’s Choirs, and taught voice and conducting. His major performances included Britten’s Saint Nicolas, Persichetti’s Celebrations, and a featured concert at the 2014 North Dakota Music Educators conference.
Since 2010, he has been associated with the St. Paul-based, early music group The Rose Ensemble. Both as a performer and transcriber/editor, he was instrumental in the production of their two most recent CDs, A Toast to Prohibition and Treasures from Baroque Malta. Mahraun now serves as co-general editor of their sheet music publishing project, Rose Publications.
For ten years, he was Director of Choral Activities at Bethany College and held the Elmer F. Pierson Distinguished Professorship in Music. As the conductor of the Bethany Choir, he reinvigorated the ensemble’s place in the Lutheran choral tradition and expanded its repertoire to include an intentional emphasis on works that celebrate the college’s Swedish and Lutheran identity. In addition to his conducting responsibilities, Mahraun taught private voice, choral conducting, voice pedagogy and literature, and aural skills. During that same time, he served as Music Director of the Bethany Oratorio Society. The renowned Society’s appearances during the annual Messiah Festival of the Arts consisted of performances of Handel’s Messiah on Palm Sunday and Easter, and Bach’s St. Matthew Passion on Good Friday. In his tenure as Music Director, Mahraun expanded the Society’s repertoire to include a performance of the complete Messiah in 2004. Through his efforts and training, the Society opened cuts to perform every chorus and the entire Gospel text in the Passion. His work with the Bethany Oratorio Society, along with sabbatical study with Bach maestra Kathy Saltzman Romey, inspired Mahraun’s 2016 Choral Journal article “‘What Language Shall I Borrow?’: Singing In Translation.”
He has served a church musician to congregations in Iowa, Colorado, Kansas, and Hawai‘i.
Mahraun earned a Bachelor of Music Education degree from Wartburg College, Master of Music degrees in conducting and performance from the University of Northern Iowa, and a Doctor of Musical Arts degree in the literature and performance of choral music from the University of Colorado at Boulder.
His major professors in the choral area have included Joan Catoni Conlon, Lawrence Kaptein, Bruce Chamberlain and Paul Torkelson. Mahraun has also done post-doctoral work through summer study with Peter Phillips in Renaissance repertoire and performance practice, and sabbatical research with Kathy Saltzman Romey on Bach’s St. Matthew Passion, and with Philip Brunelle in choral techniques and the music of Swedish composers.
Mahraun maintains an active interest in the editing and arranging of music for choirs, including music published by MorningStar Music.
His previous choral singing has included work under the batons of Duain Wolfe, Marin Alsop, Peter Phillips and JanJoost van Elburg. In addition to frequent recitals as a lyric baritone soloist, Mahraun’s credits include professional productions of La Bohème with the Sioux City (Ia.) Symphony; The Magic Flute and Don Giovanni with the Quad-City (Ia./Ill.) Mozart Festival under conductor David Rayl. His concert and oratorio performances have included performances of Mahler’s Rückert-Lieder and Vaughan Williams’ Willow-wood with the College of St. Benedict-St. John University Symphony, as well as performances of Messiah, various Bach cantatas, and Fauré’s Requiem.
His vocal training has included study with Julie Simson and Jean McDonald, and coaching with Håkan Hagegård, Ghislaine Morgan, and the late Miguel Pinto.