“Dan Cosley is a real, gifted musician with genuine skills as a composer. He belongs to a restricted community of guitarists who place music even above the guitar.”– Roland Dyens
“Exceptional qualities as a performer, scholar, and human being…a very talented and accomplished composer and improviser.” – Ricardo Iznaola
Dan Cosley is an American guitarist, composer, and author known for bridging classical tradition, jazz improvisation, and avant-garde experimentation. As a former protégé of Ricardo Iznaola and Roland Dyens, he has performed and premiered original works throughout North America, Europe, and Japan.
His published work includes over forty titles—solo and ensemble pieces, genre-defying arrangements, and the fifteen-volume cycle The Art of Canon, an exploration of modal counterpoint. Equally at home with Renaissance polyphony, jazz, free improvisation, and algorithmic composition, Cosley’s artistic voice is as diverse as it is distinct.
Cosley’s recordings reflect his wide-ranging aesthetic, spanning intimate solo works, bold electroacoustic improvisations, and intricate ensemble collaborations. His albums explore the full expressive potential of the guitar across styles, cultures, and centuries.
His career also includes composing original scores for film and television in Japan, collaborating with directors and studios, including TOEI, on both narrative features and episodic productions.
After recently returning to his hometown of Dubuque, Iowa, Dan became a director at Northeast Iowa Community College, where he oversees programs in eight counties. He continues to pursue an active creative life—composing, recording, and performing projects that extend his lifelong exploration of the guitar’s boundless expressive possibilities.
Long Bio
Guitarist, composer, and author Dan Cosley is acclaimed for his inventive musical voice, deep improvisational fluency, and distinctive contributions to contemporary music.
Recognized for his rare combination of interpretive, compositional, and improvisational abilities, Cosley was a protégé of the renowned guitarists/composers Ricardo Iznaola and Roland Dyens.
Born in 1979 near Chicago, his early studies were with the Emmy Award-winning guitarist and composer Jamie Guscafré, who introduced Dan to the classical guitar, particularly the Cuban and South American repertoire.
Through Jamie, Dan met and was deeply influenced by Roscoe Mitchell, saxophonist, composer, and founding member of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) and the Art Ensemble of Chicago.
At the Rome Festival’s invitation, Dan made his European debut in 2000, performing the music of Heitor Villa-Lobos and Joaquín Turina.
In 2005, Cosley received a dual Master’s degree in Classical Guitar Performance & Composition from the Lamont School of Music at the University of Denver. For three years, he studied with and was a graduate teaching assistant to Ricardo Iznaola, studied technique, repertoire, and chamber music with Jonathan Leathwood and Masakazu Ito, and studied composition and orchestration with visiting professor Samuel Adler (Juilliard School composition department chair).
Dan became the first guitarist to win the Lamont Concerto Competition (performing the Villa-Lobos guitar concerto) and the first student to premiere an original concerto as part of his degree recital.
While in Denver, Dan premiered works by Stephen Goss and Gilbert Biberian under the guidance of guitarist Jonathan Leathwood. He was the second recipient (after Jonathan Leathwood) of the Ricardo Iznaola Scholarship and received the Graduate Recital of Distinction award.
After his graduate studies, Dan relocated to Tokyo, Japan, where he joined the Tokyo Guitar Ensemble. He appeared at numerous festivals and concert series in Japan, premiering works written for the ensemble by prominent guitar composers Roland Dyens, Benjamin Verdery, and Atanas Ourkouzounov.
Cosley was also a fixture on the Tokyo improvisational scene, collaborating with Samm Bennett, Norihiko Hibino, and Mike Rivett. He often performed at Tokyo’s top music venues, including SuperDeluxe and Nakano ZERO.
In 2010, Dan became the third non-Japanese composer (after Andrew York and Roland Dyens) to receive the prestigious commission for the Japan Guitar Ensemble Association’s annual gala concert. The resulting composition, Waltz Triptych, is published by Les Productions d’Oz.
He was then elected the association’s first non-Japanese director; duties included writing articles, arranging music, overseeing numerous publications and recordings for Gendai Guitar, adjudicating competitions throughout Japan, and appearing at festivals such as the Shonai International Guitar Festival.
After the 2011 earthquake in Japan, Cosley relocated to Portland, Oregon, where he initially worked for Oregon Catholic Press as a staff engraver and editor of masses, motets, and Gregorian chant.
From 2012 to 2016, Dan served as Professor of Music & Director of Guitar Studies at Marylhurst University. He also taught at Portland Community College and served on the board of directors for Classical Revolution PDX.
In Portland, Dan designed and taught numerous university courses, including applied classical and jazz guitar, music theory, orchestration, notation, music technology, music history, and composition, and directed several ensembles.
In 2013, the legendary luthier Robert Ruck requested that Dan demonstrate two new instruments in a solo concert of the music of J. S. Bach and Francesco Canova da Milano.
Dan has long been interested in Japanese traditional music, particularly the koto music of Tadao Sawai. In 2016, Oregon Koto Kai commissioned Deep River, a trio for two 13-string kotos and 21-string bass koto. Deep River premièred at Portland State University during the ensemble’s 5th Anniversary Gala concert.
During his Portland period, Dan was mentored by multi-instrumentalist Ian Underwood (Frank Zappa, Quincy Jones, James Horner). He organized a free-improvisation concert and masterclass series featuring guitarist Marc Ribot. He also performed on sessions for producer Michael Hoppé, head of A&R for PolyGram Records (Vangelis, The Who, ABBA).
From 2017 to 2022, Dan lived in Kyoto, Japan, where his work centered on composition, improvisation, recording, and developing his online teaching platform, wayoftheguitar.com.
While in Kyoto, Dan co-founded the improvisation concert and workshop series Cosmic Fugue with trumpeter and cinematographer Christopher Fryman (of Carl Sagan’s Cosmos) and performed extensively with musicians Dave Moss (Ornette Coleman) and Yasutaka Okada (Kott). He was an active performer at Kyoto’s top venues, including UrBANGUILD and RAG, regularly collaborating with leading musicians and Butoh dancers. Cosley also scored films and television episodes for Japanese studios such as TOEI, collaborating with directors Minami Goto and Ryoma Masumoto.
In addition to his substantial output as a recording artist, Dan has authored nearly 40 publications – original compositions and arrangements with major publishers Les Productions d’OZ and Gendai Guitar, as well as self-published music theory and improvisation textbooks.
Cosley has published arrangements of Beethoven, Ellington, and Monteverdi with Canadian publisher Les Productions d’OZ and Japanese publisher Gendai Guitar. His groundbreaking solo electric guitar arrangements of Charles Mingus’s music have garnered considerable acclaim.
In 2022, Dan studied constraint-based and algorithmic composition at Stanford University’s CCRMA (Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics). His interest in computer-assisted composition led to the publication of a fifteen-volume series of Renaissance-influenced two-voice modal counterpoint for flexible instrumentation: The Art of Canon: 254 Two-Part Inventions.
Cosley relocated to Seattle, Washington, in 2022, continuing his wide-ranging pursuit of performance, improvisation, composition, and recording, while teaching at Edmonds College. He has performed and recorded with leading figures in the city’s creative music scene, including trombonist/conductor Christian Pincock (Scrambler) and drummer/composer Matt Jorgensen (Origin Records). In Seattle, Cosley performed as a member of the Scrambler ensemble and formed the band Known Senders with bassist Sam Hallam.
After recently returning to his hometown of Dubuque, Iowa, Dan became a director at Northeast Iowa Community College, where he oversees programs in eight counties. He continues to compose, record, and perform projects that bridge classical tradition, jazz improvisation, and experimental sound.
dancosley.com 