Early years Michael Daugherty was born into a musical family on April 28, 1954, in
Cedar Rapids, Iowa. His father Willis Daugherty (1929–2011) was a
jazz and
country and western drummer, his mother Evelyn Daugherty (1927–1974) was an amateur singer, and his grandmother Josephine Daugherty (1907–1991) was a pianist for
silent film. Daugherty's four younger brothers are all professional musicians: Pat Daugherty (b. 1956) Leader of the group New York Electric Piano, Tim Daugherty (b. 1958) jazz/pop composer of over 15 CD's featuring original compositions, Matt Daugherty (b. 1960) teacher of Music education in Florida, and Tommy D. Daugherty (b. 1961) engineer and producer for many of the
Death Row artists most specifically Tupac Shukar. The record collection at the Daugherty home consisted mainly of '
easy listening music' of the fifties and music from
Broadway theatre. During his developmental years, Daugherty's mother encouraged him to paint, draw cartoons, tap dance, and play basketball and his father and uncle Danny Nicol taught him how to play rock and jazz drums. From 1963 to 1967 Daugherty played bass drum in the Emerald Knights and tom-toms in the Grenadier
Drum and Bugle Corps where he competed against other Drum and Bugle Corps throughout small Midwestern towns. During these years, Daugherty was employed as an early morning paper boy for
The Des Moines Register and delivered papers across his neighborhood and to Mercy Hospital in Cedar Rapids. The sixties in America were a time of great political unrest and social change. This made a great impact on the teenage Daugherty.
Civil Rights demonstrations for racial equality and integration and demonstrations against the
Vietnam War were becoming common day occurrences in Iowa by 1970, especially at the nearby
University of Iowa, in Iowa City. From 1968 to 1972, Daugherty was the leader, arranger, and organist for his high school rock, soul, and
funk band, The Soul Company. Daugherty frequently attended "uptown" and "downtown" new music concerts in New York City; this is where he became acquainted with composers such as
Milton Babbitt,
Morton Feldman, and
Pierre Boulez. At Yale, Daugherty wrote his dissertation on the relationship between the music of
Charles Ives and
Gustav Mahler and the writings of
Goethe and
Ralph Waldo Emerson. One year later, in the summer of 1982, Daugherty traveled to Germany to attend the
Darmstädter Ferienkurse (Internationale Ferienkurse für Neue Musik – Darmstadt International Summer Courses in New Music). During the following two years (1983–84), Daugherty continued to study with Ligeti while employed as a solo jazz pianist in night clubs in Cambridge, England and Amsterdam. To create "original" music, Ligeti encouraged and inspired Daugherty to find new ways to integrate
computer music, jazz, rock, and American popular music with concert music. In the fall of 1984, Daugherty returned to America and devoted his career to doing just that. == Compositions ==