Dawson Atkin (b. 2001) is a Queens-based composer, singer-songwriter, and musician born in western Massachusetts. Their work spans a wide range of genres from contemporary concert music to indie-folk to musical theatre.  Much of Dawson’s music revolves around themes of mental health, queer identity, and seeing the beauty in the mundane.  They are often inspired by folk music and folk stories, using that as a major influence in their work.  Across disciplines, Dawson’s work aims to be personal, intimate, and vulnerable, frequently drawing on their own life and memories to create universality through specificity.  

 

In 2019, Dawson first collaborated with poet N.J. Collay, composing a piece based on their poem ‘Seventeen Things,’ which explores queer identity and history, composed for mixed chamber ensemble and narrator.  This collaboration led to the creation of Dawson’s first major work as a songwriter, a theatrical song cycle entitled “Notes on Me and You,” which was co-created with Collay and centers around a man as he loses his life partner in the midst of the HIV/AIDS epidemic that swept the country in the 1980s.  This work was premiered in a video directed and edited by Atkin and was selected for the 2020 Hartford Fringe Festival.  The work was available for a full month, and received critical acclaim.

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Following their work with the Hartford Fringe Festival, Dawson began work on their first evening length original musical, Escaping Eden, which premiered in April 2022 under the direction of Omar Sandakly.  This folk musical is an adaptation of the Judeo-Christian creation story from Eve's perspective.  It examines the role of gender both in the original story and in how the story has been told and remembered.  Shortly before the premiere, Dawson was invited to speak on their work at the 2022 Northeast Regional Honors Conference, which celebrates the most promising honors thesis projects from colleges in the northeastern United States. 

 

Outside of this project, Dawson has produced a number of theatrical works, including Stone Soup, a children’s mini-musical, and Crafter’s Project, a song cycle composed along with 4 other rising composers for the theatre.  Dawson also scored The Hartt School’s 2020 production of Middletown, providing incidental music, and was a collaborator on Salt Wild, an immersive theatre experience in Shelburne Falls, MA, for which they acted, sang, composed, and helped develop the story of the performance.  

 

Dawson is also an accomplished singer-songwriter.  Dawson has performed live throughout New England, and made their NYC debut at the Bowery Electric in 2022.  Their album, transit, was released in 2023 and features original songs focusing on memory, identity, and coming of age.  As a member of their band Dark Sky Reserve, Dawson participated in Make Music Day in Hartford, CT in 2021 and 2022 and in Brooklyn in 2024.  This band has also recorded an improvised album, Playground Sounds, and performed live on WSAM radio. 

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Dawson Atkin also has a substantial repertory of concert works for various ensembles and soloists.  In 2021, they were selected to have two works for Chamber Orchestra premiered by The Hartt School’s award-winning Foot in the Door ensemble.  The same year, Dawson had a piece for solo bass and fixed media premiered by Robert Black, a founding member of Bang on a Can All-Stars.    

 

The Sun and The Moon, Dawson’s puppet opera, premiered in Fall 2021, marking their first venture into the world of opera.  It is based on an original creation myth, and all elements were created by Atkin, including the puppets and animation.  This work built on their experience with the Hartford Fringe Festival, creating a work specifically for video that could be adapted to the stage, rather than the other way around. 

 

Dawson Atkin is pursuing an MFA in Musical Theatre Writing from New York University. They graduated from The Hartt School with a B.M. in composition in 2022.  There, they studied with composers Aaron Helgeson, Robert Carl, Gilda Lyons, and Adam Lenz, as well as singer-songwriter Javier Colon.  In 2021, Dawson was named Presser Scholar of The Hartt School.  Dawson is an arts educator and administrator, serving as Program Coordinator for ArtistYear NYC.