About
A seasoned soloist, chamber musician, improviser, composer and pedagogue, Daniel Hass is on a continual mission to expand the range and expressiveness of the cello.
Daniel made his concerto debut with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra at age 15, and won 1st prize at the 2016 Stulberg International String Competition. He has since performed with orchestras across the US and Canada, receiving awards from the Canada Council for the Arts, the New York State Council on the Arts, and the Sylva Gelber Music Foundation.
Daniel is a founding member of the Renaissance String Quartet, an ensemble championed by legends like Itzhak Perlman and praised for reshaping the contemporary landscape. Currently serving as quartet-in-residence at Caramoor Music and as visiting resident artists at the Institute for Advanced Study, the RSQ has performed eclectic recitals, often featuring Daniel’s own compositions, in venues such as Queen Elizabeth Hall in London, McCarter Theatre in Princeton, and the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston. They’ve been featured on Dutch television's Podium Klassiek and WQXR, New York City’s premiere classical music radio station. Committed to education and community building, they have led masterclasses and residencies at London’s Southbank Centre and the Perlman Music Program Suncoast. They also established the "Beyond Boundaries" benefit recitals in Jamaica, bringing classical repertoire, and Daniel’s arrangements of songs by Bob Marley and Jimmy Cliff to schools and communities across the country. Upcoming concerts include recitals at Town Hall in New York, Konzerthaus Dortmund in Germany, and Kings Place in London.
As a boundary-defying improviser, Daniel tours and records with modern jazz ensembles Orlando Furioso, winner of the 2022 German Jazz Prize, Phillip Golub’s Abiding Memory Quintet, and the Tal Yahalom quintet. He also performs with indie rock acts such as Sloppy Jane and May Rio.
A prolific composer, Daniel’s original works bridge the gap between the classical canon and contemporary American music. He released his debut album as a composer, Love & Levity, in 2025 on Sono Luminus, and is contributing original compositions to violinist Randall Goosby’s upcoming album on Decca Classics. His compositions have been commissioned by the Glenn Gould Foundation, Random Access Music, the Revolve Dance Project, and the West Coast Black Theater Troupe. His work Susanoo Battles the 8-Headed Serpent was awarded a competitive grant from the New York State Council on the Arts. His work as an arranger has reached massive audiences; in 2023, his original arrangement of the U.S. National Anthem was performed by Randall Goosby at the Crypto.com Arena for an audience of over 19,000.
A passionate educator, Daniel serves as faculty for the Young Artists Orchestra of Las Vegas and the Cyrus Tang Foundation’s youth orchestra program in Suzhou, China. He has a studio of private students and teaches cello at Brooklyn Music School.
Daniel holds Master’s and Bachelor’s degrees from Juilliard, where he was a Kovner Fellow. He performs on the 1730 Joannes Franciscus Celoniatus cello, an instrument of immense historical significance on loan to him from the Canada Council for the Arts.Music has always been the constant. What started as something personal has grown into a body of work shaped by countless hours writing, recording, and figuring it out one track at a time. Every release reflects where things are right now, with more on the way.