On the morning of Wednesday, July 31, 2024, Danlee Mitchell passed away peacefully at his home, among family. In an instant, one of the last and most critical links to Harry Partch was gone. There will be more news in the weeks and months ahead, and I will endeavor to post regularly. I have dropped the editorial “we” stance because I am now without his partnership and because of the sincerely personal nature of sharing the news. In nearly thirty intermittent years of curating Corporeal Meadows, this is my most challenging assignment.

Danlee was born in Tacoma, Washington, to parents who were accomplished musicians. He began musical studies early, excelled in high school, and then spent a brief time at the University of Puget Sound. His life took a wonderfully strange turn when he went to the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, in 1956. At this time, Partch came to Illinois for a production of his newest work, The Bewitched, to be premiered in the spring of 1957.

Danlee had chosen UI because — at the time — it was one of the few universities to institute a comprehensive percussion program, begun by Paul Price and Jack McKenzie. While he had not previously known of Partch, Danlee recalled:

"The people there said 'Well, would you like to be in this ensemble that we're going to play his music?' so I said sure, I'll go over there and see his studio where they had his instruments and check it out. And so I did, and I met him and I saw all these instruments and they looked very interesting to me. I saw that this was going to be a pretty interesting and fulfilling experience, so I latched onto one of the instruments and started learning it, and then rehearsals started for this piece that theywere going to perform in Illinois in the spring. It was then I realized, artistically and intuitively, that here percussion was an integral part of the musical structure and not just color in the background of a concert band or an orchestra."

Danlee Mitchell playing Boo I, University of Illinois, 1957.

The die was cast. When Partch moved to Northwestern University in 1958, Danlee followed him there, helping to arrange an ensemble to record and film U.S. Highball and other works and generally assisting Harry. The following year, Partch and Mitchell returned to the University of Illinois, with Danlee becoming a graduate assistant to both Partch and Jack McKenzie. In the following three years, he assisted Partch in two more premieres and graduated in 1962 with a master's. In 1964, he traveled to Petaluma, CA, to assist Partch again. Along with percussionist Michael Ranta, they recorded all of the duets that formed And on the Seventh Day Petals Fell in Petaluma in an abandoned chick hatchery.

Danlee Mitchell, Harry Partch, Michael Ranta - Petaluma, CA, 1964

Later that fall, Danlee moved to San Diego, having taken a position as Professor of Music at San Diego State University, and began a new percussion program there. Soon, Partch would relocate to various residences in Los Angeles and San Diego, and Danlee assumed more significant duties as music director and ensemble manager. Under his guidance, the influential Whitney Museum concert transpired in 1968, followed by the iconic Columbia recording The World of Harry Partch. Soon after, he and Partch began rehearsals for Partch's last extensive staged work, Delusion of the Fury, which premiered at the University of California, Los Angeles, in 1969 and was subsequently recorded by Columbia.

Danlee Mitchell, UCLA with the Partch instruments, 1968

Harry was slowing, and after his final move to the San Diego area, he once again relied on Danlee for the last production of his life and career, The Dreamer That Remains. Danlee formed a new ensemble of local musicians, one that would perform Partch's music for nearly 20 more years. In June of 1974, Harry finally received copies of his newly republished Genesis of a Music; in Mitchell's copy, he inscribed: "To Danlee -- the sine qua non." When Harry Partch passed just a couple of months later, he left his life's work in the hands of Mr. Danlee Mitchell.

Danlee Mitchell, Berlin, 1980 - Preparing for “The Bewitched” at the Berlin Festival. Photo: Anita Mitchell

From 1974 through 1990, Danlee continued to promote and showcase Partch's work, producing concerts and staged productions, organizing tours, and introducing Partch's work in Europe (The Bewitched, 1980). While the instruments were housed at San Diego State and given a certain degree of logistical support, it was not in an official capacity, so students received no credit for their work in the ensemble, and there was no financial support. Frankly, it was all on Danlee's shoulders, on top of his duties as a faculty member. (Much of this period is covered in The Corporeal Group, and I risk being sidetracked.) In addition to his work with the Partch world, Danlee developed a deep love and interest in music and art of other regions and cultures and was instrumental in bringing noted ethnomusicologist Robert E. Brown to the campus, where they developed a new ethnomusicology program. Danlee traveled to Africa (Ghana and Togo) and Asia (Indonesia and Turkey) to study and absorb the artistic contributions that had grown elsewhere; locally, he was active with the Center for World Music. A supremely dedicated teacher, he guided decades of students who benefited from these travels and studies.

Danlee Mitchell with Gamelan, San Diego. Photo: Anita Mitchell

Additionally, Danlee was a great member of the percussion community. With his own genesis at the beginning of the modern era of percussion pedagogy, he tutored percussion students with sound technical skills and engaged and open artistic viewpoints. He performed with the San Diego Symphony, San Diego Opera, San Diego Chamber Orchestra, La Jolla Symphony, and many other local organizations. He was always willing to share from his extensive instrumental collection and reveled in contributing a new color or texture with one of his instruments, always gladly loaned. In short, as collaborative a colleague as one could want.

Danlee Mitchell at San Diego Opera. Photo: Jon Szanto

And now, he is gone.

For fully half of Harry's productive life, he was there. As Partch noted, from their time in Evanston: "Danlee rented a garage, paid for it himself, and virtually single-handedly moved my instruments into it. He really saved my life." This behavior occurred repeatedly during their 20-year relationship, and Partch admired Danlee’s "perception beyond his years." After Harry's passing Danlee brought that same perception, deepened with his long artistic partnership with Partch, to many more years of bringing Harry's world to audiences near and far.

It is that gained wisdom and a deep understanding of what Harry was trying to communicate that I will miss beyond words. In the last ten years, he and I had conversed many times about where all of this was going. I made it a point to be present in these moments and absorb and witness what he knew. We remembered a line of thought that Harry would express, especially in later years, and which he encapsulated at one point:

"What I am saying is that physical possession of scores and instruments is meaningless unless the knowledge, the usages, the traditions, the ethos, the daimon, that underlie and permeate them are somehow present. I speak to the intuitive and understanding human element."

If he was anything, Danlee was that intuitive human element above anyone else in Harry's universe. His intuition in the flow of the music, in the preparation of the performers, in the motives and emotions that lay not on the page but in between the notes, was unparalleled. In the last 30 years — after the instruments had moved to other locales, as new facsimile groups started to appear — when he and I would be listening to a recording or watching a performance, I knew what he was thinking. And I, too, knew what was missing. Now it will be exponentially more difficult to instill what was — is — missing.

Danlee Mitchell listening to playback, Pioneer Chicken Hatchery, Petaluma, CA. Photo: Bruce Harlow

One day, I'll be able to put a complete, compelling biography of Danlee Mitchell here on the site. At some point, I'll have the calm and clarity for a deeper and more nuanced assessment. The time is now, though, and it is my profound duty to put at least this small remembrance here, cobbled together from bits and pieces of my 50 years of knowing the man. I will lean on him in the coming years, as he is still a part of me. To the world and anyone who has experienced Harry Partch's extraordinary life and work, the debt we all owe to a quiet man from the Pacific Northwest is inestimable. Harry was so damned right: Danlee Mitchell was indispensable, the sine qua non.