Daniel Asia, born in Seattle, WA in 1953, has been the recipient of the most competitive grants and fellowships in music including a Meet The Composer/ Reader's Digest Consortium Commission, United Kingdom Fulbright Arts Award Fellowship, a Guggenheim Fellowship, four NEA Composers Grants, a M. B. Rockefeller Grant, an Aaron Copland Fund for Music Grant, McDowell Colony and Tanglewood Fellowships, ASCAP and BMI composition prizes, and a DAAD Fellowship for study in the Federal Republic of Germany. Rivalries, for orchestra, was a semi-finalist in the Friedheim Competition of the Kennedy Center, 1986. As Elliott Hurwitt writes in his Schwann Opus review of the composer's compact disc, Ivory, "Daniel Asia is a genuine creative spirit, an excellent composer,... He is a welcome addition to the roster of our strongest group of living composers."

The composer's major orchestral works include four symphonies, a piano concerto, a cello concerto, 2 song cycles and the works At the Far Edge, Black Light, and Gateways. He has also written extensively for chamber ensembles and solo performers. Working with many renowned soloists, ensembles, and orchestras, Mr. Asia has been commissioned by the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, Seattle Symphony Orchestra, Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, Phoenix Symphony, American Composers Orchestra, Columbus Symphony Orchestra, among others, and Dorian Wind Quintet, Musical Elements, Andre-Michel Schub/piano, Carter Brey/cello, John Shirley-Quirk and Sara Watkins/baritone and oboe, Jonathan Shames/piano, and Robert Dick/flute.

Asia's works have been performed by renowned conductors including Zdenek Macal, Jesus Lopez-Cobos, Eiji Oue, Lawrence Leighton Smith, Hermann Michael, Carl St. Clair, James Sedares, Stuart Malina, Robert Bernhardt, George Hanson, Jonathan Shames, and Christopher Kendall.

Assistant Professor of Contemporary Music and Wind Ensemble at the Oberlin Conservatory from 1981-6, Mr. Asia resided in London from 1986-8 working under the auspices of the UK Fulbright Arts Award and Guggenheim Fellowship. From 1991-1994, Mr. Asia was the Meet the Composer/ Composer In Residence with the Phoenix Symphony. He has been on the faculty at the University of Arizona since 1989, and is presently Professor of Music, and head of the Composition Department.

Asia's music is recorded on the Summit, New World, Albany/Troy, and Attacca record labels. His music is published by Merion Music (Theodore Presser Co.)