DANIEL W. BOOTHE is an internationally award-winning music professional currently serving as Music Director & Conductor of the Symphonicity Orchestra and Commander & Conductor for the United States Air National Guard Band of the Southwest . His other recent appointments included selection as Principal Conductor of the International Composers Festival in East Sussex, United Kingdom and as lecturer at the F. Ludwig Diehn School of Music at Old Dominion University .

As a recording producer for numerous CD albums, and conductor or performer around the world, his live and recorded concert events for television, radio, and internet broadcasts have reached over 50 million people in 175 countries. His consummate professionalism, artistic vision, and highly-successful engagement with diverse audiences has earned a reputation of tremendous respect and success across many genres.

In 2007, Boothe was the sole international recipient of the prestigious David Effron Conducting Fellowship for the Chautauqua Institution in New York, where he led symphonic, ballet, and opera performances to rave reviews. He won a U.S. national audition in 2009 to become a U.S. Air Force Bands conductor and officer. In 2012 he was named Finalist for The American Prize in Orchestral Conducting. His military musical leadership has been recognized by The John Philip Sousa Foundation with a Colonel Howard Citation Award for Musical Excellence, the highest international award for military concert bands and conductors. He was also an awardee of a National Medal of the Arts, the highest award given to artists by the U.S. government. In 2016, Boothe was chosen to conduct the National Christmas Tree Lighting Ceremony concert broadcast for The Hallmark Channel featuring former U.S. President and First Lady Obama and a line-up of celebrity GRAMMY-winning artists.

Throughout his career, Boothe has commissioned and world-premiered music by Grammy-winning composer Kenneth Fuchs, collaborated with New York playwright and prolific author Susan Laubach, and has worked alongside legendary artists such as Grammy-winning Gregg Field, pianist and Grammy-nominated orchestrator Shelly Berg, trombonist Steve Turre from Saturday Night Live, and celebrity performers such as James Taylor, Garth Brooks, Marc Anthony, Kelly Clarkson and many others. As conductor, he has led productions with Dr. Adam Jonathan Con from the University of Victoria School of Music in Canada, staged performances with the internationally-traveled Wittenberg Choir and MUSICA professional chamber choir, and has led performances with the Dayton Philharmonic Orchestra, Virginia Symphony Orchestra, River City Brass Band, American Music Stage in Washington D.C., Interlochen Arts Academy Wind Ensemble and the world-class United States Air Force Concert Band, Airmen of Note, and Singing Sergeants ensembles to include broadcasts and studio recordings.

Internationally, Boothe led efforts with the Embassy of the United States to foster ground-breaking U.S. Air Force performances at Jazz at Lincoln Center Doha with esteemed jazz trumpeter and then-appointed Jazz at Lincoln Center's Global Ambassador, Dominick Farinacci. In Qatar, he also debuted as a conductor with the Doha Community Orchestra and was an invited clinician for the Qatar Music Academy where he initiated an Arab Music and Western Music exchange program with faculty. Former BBC Symphony Orchestra principal tuba James Gourlay and the River City Brass Band invited Boothe as a virtual guest conductor on the screen for multiple live-streaming concerts that musically bridged the Southwest Asia with U.S. cities. Boothe’s diplomatic leadership led to first-ever live American performances on Afghanistan’s second largest radio station, Radio Bayan, which included innovative collaborations with native musicians and call-ins from over 2.5 million listeners.

In addition to his music career, Boothe is a skilled communicator and public relations professional. He earned top recognition in media management and strategic public affairs leadership as a Distinguished Graduate of the Defense Information School. He also earned the 2014 Public Affairs Communication Excellence Award from the U.S. Air Force which recognized him as the top communication professional out of 179 peers worldwide. His outstanding reputation led to his hand-picked selection as a personal communications and national media advisor in the Pentagon where he personally served for the 23rd Secretary of the Air Force, Deborah Lee James.

Prior to joining the Air Force, Boothe served as Percussion Director for the American Wind Symphony’s Winds on the Mon music scholars program, Associate Conductor of the George Mason University Symphony Orchestra, and Director of Percussion at Radford University. He also served as a Visiting Artist for the University of Virginia's College at Wise where he taught and authored innovative curriculum in percussion, composition, and music history. Boothe earned numerous scholarships from the Theodore Presser Foundation, the Maryland Distinguished Scholar Award program, the Ithaca College of Music and a full scholarship from the University of North Texas percussion program. Along with peers from Princeton, Harvard, and Yale, he was recognized by USA-TODAY News as one of the top 20 collegiate scholars in the United States and listed among Who's Who in American Colleges and Universities.

As a composer, his music is distributed exclusively by Cane River Music. He is known for writing strikingly poignant and powerful works that pay homage to others and their causes. His commissioned tone poem, Trinitas, memorialized the passing of three teenagers in Minnesota. It was recognized with a 2005 Young Composer's Award from the National Band Association and also featured in USA-TODAY News. In 2013 he composed and produced new official music to honor our nation's combat fallen as a soundtrack for video documentaries for the Department of Defense. This music underscored the solemn occasion when a war-fallen loved one is returned home in a Dignified Transfer. The premiere United States Air Force Concert Band and Singing Sergeants selected his holiday opener, "Spirit of the Season Overture," as the title track of a recording and broadcast shared around the world. His numerous commissioned and published compositions for voice, winds, percussion, and orchestra have been performed throughout the United States by professional, university and student ensembles.

An incredibly diverse musician, for over 30 years Boothe has been a drummer for jazz ensembles from Ohio to the east coast, appearing with The Len Gray Jazz Orchestra, ShinSings Jazz Orchestra, Jefferson Street Strutters Dixieland band, Mind Traffic fusion band, and with New York performer/songwriter ALARKE. Boothe has also appeared in performances and recordings as concert percussionist with the Salisbury Symphony Orchestra, Roanoke Symphony and Chorus, Opera Roanoke, Wintergreen Festival Orchestra, Alfred Music Publications and as a guest with the United States Army Field Band from Washington D.C. He is in high demand nationally as a music adjudicator having adjudicated for the U.S. Scholastic Band Association and the Winter Guard International Percussion World Championships. In 2004 he was invited by Vic Firth Inc. as an Education Team member and endorsed as a Marching & Scholastic Percussion Specialist. He has been a featured artist in multiple Percussive Arts Society "Day of Percussion" state events around the country.

Boothe studied timpani with Leo LePage of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and began collegiate studies at West Virginia University in composition as well as symphonic percussion, steel pan, Japanese taiko, African drumming, and Balinese gamelan. His notable teachers included the prize-winning composer Dr. John Beall, world-class marimbist She-e Wu, percussion artist Aaron Guidry of Cirque du Soleil and conducting lessons with the legendary Maestro Frederick Fennell. He earned a Bachelor of Music in composition from Radford University (magna cum laude), studied with internationally celebrated composer Mark Camphouse, pursued additional studies in voice, piano, viola and percussion performance, and was recognized with distinction as a Radford Highlander Scholar. Boothe completed a Master of Music in orchestral conducting from George Mason University under the tutelage of Maestro Anthony Maiello of the American Festival Pops Orchestra. During his time in residence at the Chautauqua Institute in New York, he continued conducting studies with Maestro Timothy Muffitt of the Baton Rouge Symphony Orchestra and Lansing Symphony Orchestra.

Membership have included the Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia music fraternity, Pi Kappa Lambda national music honor society, Phi Kappa Phi honor society, Omicron Delta Kappa national leadership honor society, and the National Society of Collegiate Scholars. He has also served as a member of the Conductors Guild, the National Band Association, the World Association for Symphonic Bands and Ensembles, Americans for the Arts, and the League of American Symphony Orchestras. He is married to soprano and music educator, Andrea Boothe. Together they have five children and while continuing to serve in the Air National Guard, he remains available and engaged as a guest conductor, composer, clinician, and professional speaker.

Conducting

Excerpts From Civilian and Military Performances

Other Activities & Interviews

Interviews, Teaching & Percussion Performance