Danaë Xanthe Vlasse

Composer Danaë Vlasse writes music mostly in keyboard and vocal genres. She also operates her own teaching studio and recording company. Vlasse was born Danaë Xanthe in Bordeaux, France, on September 12, 1981. She is married to Jeremy Vlasse and has used the names Danaë Vlasse and Danaë Xante Vlasse. Her father was a native of Ithaca island, Greece, who had come to the U.S. for schooling, worked in France, where Danaë was born, and then returned to the U.S. to take a job with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in Huntsville, Alabama. Vlasse grew up there, studying piano even before she could remember doing so. She attended the University of Alabama at Huntsville, graduating with a degree in piano performance. At that time, Vlasse felt burned out on piano; she applied to a graduate program in ethnomusicology and was accepted, but then felt a strong urge to return to applied music-making. In 2005, she moved to Los Angeles and began to establish herself as a composer and teacher. After teaching at several music schools, she opened her own Music Vision Studio, providing classical piano instruction to students from children to age 90. Under the aegis of the studio, she also opened a record label that has served as a vehicle for her recordings. Vlasse made her recording debut in 2013 as a performer of The Swans: 12 Valses Mélancoliques by Stephan Beneking. Most of her recordings since then have contained her own compositions; Trilogies, Celebrations & Commemoration, and Solstice appeared on the Music Vision Studio label. A long list of other performers have also recorded Vlasse's work, including pianist Robert Thies, soprano Hila Plitmann, and flutist Wouter Kellerman; she has collaborated with musicians around the U.S., Europe, the Middle East, and India. Her music has also been incorporated into ballet and figure-skating performances, the latter by Madeline Stammen of Cirque du Soleil. In 2019, Vlasse served as composer-in-residence for the Sterling Ensemble. She moved to the MSR label in 2020 and to Cezanne Producciones in 2021 for Danaë Xanthe Vlasse: Mythologies, a set of songs inspired by her father's Greek origins and more broadly by Greek mythology. That album earned a Grammy Award nomination for Best Classical Solo Vocal Album.
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