Dan
Marschak
Composer | Pianist | Educator

Bio

Dan Marschak is an Oakland-born composer, jazz pianist, and educator. He is full-time faculty member in the Music Department at Las Positas College. A founding member of the composers collective LA Signal Lab, his recent work includes performances at LA Phil’s Noon to Midnight, collaborations with ensembles HOCKET and Aperture Duo, a residency at Avaloch Farm Music Institute, and the collaborative interstellar cantata project URSA. His orchestra piece Two Rivers was commissioned by the American Composers Orchestra and performed by the La Jolla Symphony under Steven Schick.

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As a jazz pianist, Marschak gigs regularly throughout the Bay Area in a wide range of settings. His debut album Likewise was praised by Lalo Schifrin as “adventurous and well developed,” and noted by All About Jazz for its “interesting and genre-varied repertoire.” He appears as music director, composer, and pianist on Kalil Wilson’s album Time Stops, and co-founded Well Versed Productions with producer and drummer Miles Senzaki, scoring projects from short films to full-length features. 

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A committed educator, he is currently full-time faculty at Las Positas College in Livermore, where he teaches composition, music theory, piano, jazz combos, and piano pedagogy. He holds an MA in Composition from UCLA, where his primary teachers were Paul Chihara, James Newton, Ian Krouse, Mark Carlson, Roger Bourland, and David S. Lefkowitz as well as dual BA’s from UCLA in Composition and Ethnomusicology (Jazz Studies).

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A new album of all original music is slated for release in 2027.