Daniel Taborda (b. 1990) is a Colombian born composer currently based in Arizona. Taborda’s music blends his Latin American heritage with the contemporary classical music language. Daniel is a very versatile composer his compositions embark all kinds of levels, genres styles and instrumentations. In addition to this, he also creates electroacoustic music, EDM and popular music genres. 

Daniel received his bachelor’s in music composition from Universidad EAFIT in Medellin - Colombia in 2014, where he studied with the Italian composer Marco Alunno. While in Colombia Daniel was the music director of two different municipalities, one in Gomez Plata and the second one in Urrao. He taught music to children, teenagers and adults and introduced them to playing in different ensembles.  

He was the recipient of multiples composition prizes such as: “Antioquia Vive la Música” (2009), the music composition contest for wind band for the virtual bank of music (2012), the second place during the national contest of unpublished Colombian Music in San Pedro – Valle del Cauca (2014), a special honorable mention for the artistic creation of the Colombian Ministry of Culture with his piece “Transfiguración” (2014) and the winner of prestigious national prize of composition of the Colombian Ministry of Culture (2014). 

Daniel holds two master’s degree from Oklahoma City University Bass School of Music. He studied composition with Edward Knight and conducting with Eric Garcia. While at Oklahoma City University, Daniel was selected to be the 2015 - 2016 Oklahoma Youth Orchestras (OYO) Composer-in-Residence, he played saxophone for the OCU Wind Philharmonic, was the assistant conductor for the Oklahoma Youth Winds and Oklahoma Youth Orchestras and was also the assistant conductor for OCU’s Fall 2015 Mainstage opera production of Don Pasquale. In addition to this, Daniel was the recipient of the Rick McGee Composition Award, was adjudicator for the project 21 National High School Composition Competition, and the leading adjudicator for Oklahoma Baptist University Annual Concerto/Aria Competition in 2017.

In 2018, his piece “Iris” for wind band was published by Piles Music in Europe. In 2018, Daniel was accepted to pursue studies in the field of Conducting in different conservatories and universities in Europe such as: Dublin Institute of Technology (DIT), Codarts and Fontys University (The Netherlands), and Conservatorio della Svizzera Italiana (Switzerland). 

In June 2019 his piece “Fansaxo” was premiered in Asia by the Honk Kong Tak Ming Philharmonic Winds. 

In 2019, Daniel moved to Arizona to pursue a Doctor of Musical Arts in composition at Arizona State University Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts. At ASU Daniel was awarded with a teaching assistantship position. In spring of 2020 Daniel won the composition competition at Arizona State University. The same year ASMTA commissioned a piece for piano solo the ASMTA piano conference of 2020. Recently was awarded the 3rd place at the Kathleen Mykytyn Distinguished Composition Award. Taborda Received his Doctorate in Music Composition in March of 2022. He has studied composition with Gabriel Bolaños, Jody Rockmaker, Alex Temple.

His pedagogical piano compositions have been played in Colombia, Brazil, United States, China, Belgium, and his project Alda Music Publisher has been invited to participate in many piano pedagogy festivals in Brazil and the US.

In 2021 Daniel was accepted to pursue a postgraduate degree in conducting at Akademia Sztuki w Szczecinie in Szczecin, Poland with Piotr Borkowski.

Daniel is the music minister at Shepherd of the Desert Lutheran Church in Scottsdale, Arizona, where he conducts the choir and composes sacred music. In addition, Daniel is also an adjunct professor of music theory, aural skill and music history at Grand Canyon University.

He is currently developing his project Dr. Cicada Music.