Dan Charness ’10 won first place in the folk/acoustic category of the Indie International Songwriting Contest for his song, “Summertime Delight,” which he also arranged produced, recorded and mixed.
A cellist since the age of four, he Charness was a Phi Beta Kappa history major at Wesleyan and has recently moved to New York City to pursue a career in music. Two weeks after arriving, he landed his first gig in the City—at Caffé Vivaldi on Nov. 7, in Greenwich Village.
While Charness spent his earlier years immersed in classical music, he used his four years at Wesleyan to develop further breadth in his musical interests—including a thesis on the Beatles and Baby-Boomers, with Professor of History Ron Schatz and Professor of Music Eric Charry as his advisers; an internship at a recording studio; and three years in The Spirits, Wesleyan’s traditional all-male a cappella group.
“I joined the Wesleyan Spirits as a sophomore,”