Buck McDaniel is a composer, conductor, keyboardist, and improviser based in New York City. His music blends the American Minimalist tradition with a personal storytelling practice. McDaniel’s work often explores site, text, and memory, engaging both concert, sacred, and non-traditional spaces with equal depth and curiosity. 

His compositions have been performed and broadcast internationally, including on NBC’s Saturday Night Live, BBC Radio 3, WQXR, and NPR’s The Moth Radio Hour. His work appears in Oliver Hermanus’s film The History of Sound, starring Paul Mescal and Josh O’Connor, which premiered at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival. A frequent collaborator, McDaniel has worked with artists including Sam Smith, Nico Muhly, Sam Amidon, and Stuart Bogie.

McDaniel is a former Kulas Composer Fellow at Cleveland Public Theatre, and his projects have been supported by institutions such as the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MASS MoCA), the Mississippi Museum of Art, and the Lauren Rogers Museum of Art. His work has been presented by the Boston University Tanglewood Institute, the Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, and the Cleveland Chamber Symphony, among others.

His music and interdisciplinary projects have been covered by The New York Times, Time Out New York, and Relix. Recordings of his work are available on Etymology, Gold Bolus, and Telarc labels. He serves as Artist-in-Residence at The General Theological Seminary and Director of Music at the Church of Our Saviour, Murray Hill and Chapel of the Sacred Hearts, Kips Bay.