Daniel Aune has been the director of music and organist at Christ Lutheran Church in Baltimore, since 2011. At Christ Church he leads the choral and instrumental programs, as well as the Hafenmusik: Music by the Harbor concert series. Aune holds the Doctor of Musical Arts degree in organ performance from the Eastman School of Music, where he studied with David Higgs. Previous degrees at Eastman include a Master of Music degree in organ with David Higgs, a Master of Music degree in harpsichord with William Porter, and the Sacred Music Diploma. Additional studies included improvisation with William Porter and a doctoral minor in composition. He began his undergraduate studies with Peter Nygaard at Concordia College in Moorhead, Minn., where he also had the privilege of singing in The Concordia Choir and studying choral conducting with René Clausen.

Aune has been published in the Eastman Organ Book and has also composed choral anthems and hymn arrangements for organ, brass, and choir. He has performed in classes led by Harold Vogel, Jacques van Oortmerssen, Ludger Lohmann, Michel Bouvard, Olivier Latry, Todd Wilson, Joan Lippincott, and Cherry Rhodes. His competition credits include first prize in both the Rodland Memorial Scholarship Competition and the San Marino Competition, second place in the Arthur Poister Competition, and a semi-finalist in the National Young Artists Competition in Organ Performance which is sponsored by the American Guild of Organists. Aune also was awarded the first-ever Lecture-Recital Prize at Eastman for his thesis “Johann Sebastian Bach’s Leipzig Chorales: New Thoughts on Their Development and Function.”

Firmly believing in giving back to the music community, he is dean of the Baltimore Chapter of the American Guild of Organists (AGO), vice-president for Region I of the Association of Lutheran Church Musicians, and is the director of the national Task Force on Denominational Music Organizations for the AGO. He has been heard in recitals and hymn festivals across the United States.