Dan McGlade is a Yorkshire-based songwriter, composer, musical director and performer whose work spans theatre, film, festivals, community arts and original music. Whether composing for a national touring theatre company, musical directing a community project, writing songs for a theatrical rock band or helping someone discover the music hidden inside their own story, he remains driven by the same fascination that first grabbed him as a teenager: the power of music to tell stories.

That fascination began in an orchard.

As a teenager, Dan's musical world was permanently rearranged when a friend played him Queen at a volume that was probably unsafe and certainly life-changing. Raised on a high-protein diet of concept albums, classical music, show tunes and rock, he became obsessed with melody, character, narrative and the thrilling possibility that a song might contain an entire world. Several decades later, he is still enthusiastically pursuing that particular obsession.

Over the last thirty years, Dan has built a remarkably varied career as a composer, musical director, songwriter and performer. He has written and arranged music for theatre, film, festivals, educational projects and community arts programmes, working with professional performers, emerging artists and participants of all ages and backgrounds. Along the way, he has discovered that whether you are scoring a theatrical production, leading a songwriting workshop or standing on stage with an electric (well, usually bass) guitar, you are fundamentally trying to do the same thing: tell a story and make somebody feel something.

Dan's work as a composer and musical director has taken him across an unusually broad range of creative settings. His credits include projects for Mikron Theatre Company, Leeds Conservatoire, Leeds Playhouse, Wrongsemble Theatre, 509Arts and numerous independent productions and festivals. Supported by Arts Council England's Developing Your Creative Practice programme, he has continued to explore the intersection of music, narrative and performance through projects ranging from national touring theatre productions to immersive events and large-scale outdoor spectacles.

Recent work has included composing and arranging music for Mikron Theatre's national touring productions A Force To Be Reckoned With and Common Ground; creating music for Bradford 2025 projects including Statuesque and LightFall; writing incidental music for Merely Players' Fakespeare; and serving as resident composer and musical director for Let Me Tell You A Story, a festival celebrating creativity and storytelling among older people. Previous work has included composing and musical directing productions for Leeds Conservatoire, several of which were subsequently staged at Leeds Playhouse.

Alongside his commissioned work, Dan has always been drawn to projects that bring people together through music. He is one of the organisers of Troubadour, a growing Yorkshire songwriting community built around the simple idea that songs are best discovered in the company of other songwriters. The project has become a space where experienced performers, first-time writers and everyone in between can share songs, stories, ideas and the occasional existential crisis over a cup of tea. Or coffee. Or beer.

Performance has been equally central to Dan's musical life. In the 1990s, he founded and fronted the theatrical dandy-rock band Rent, a gloriously ambitious enterprise that combined original songs, theatricality and enough velvet to alarm sensible people. The band played theatres and venues throughout the UK and were once affectionately described as sounding like "a three-way train crash between The Divine Comedy, Scissor Sisters and The Rocky Horror Show". During their adventures, they shared stages — and occasionally social occasions — with artists including the Sensational Alex Harvey Band, Bill Wyman and the Rhythm Kings, Rolan Bolan and Shana Morrison.

Subsequent musical adventures have included performing with Loqui, with whom he appeared at the Reading and Leeds Festivals, and Captain Wilberforce, which led to performances at Liverpool's legendary Cavern Club. He has also worked extensively as a session musician and bassist, most recently with Candacraig and The Rock Vixen Theatre Show, and continues to perform with the Americana-inspired harmony trio Poison & Wine.

In 2023, Dan finally stopped pretending that the teenage dream of being in a rock band had gone away. Supported by Arts Council England funding, he released Mid Vice Crisis, his debut solo EP: a collection of theatrical, narrative-driven rock songs populated by morally dubious characters, melodramatic situations and a healthy disregard for restraint. The project would ultimately evolve into The L☿rds Of MisRule, the theatrical rock band he co-founded with guitarist Mike Ward. The band are currently at work on their second EP, continuing their campaign to prove that rock and roll dreams do not, in fact, come with an expiry date.

Dan's work has also extended into film, including writing and performing the closing song for the feature film The Big I Am, starring Michael Madsen and Steven Berkoff.

Across all of these projects — from theatre productions and community festivals to songwriting circles and rock bands — one thing remains constant: a fascination with stories, characters and the ways music can bring people together. Whether composing for a stage, a festival audience, a community project or a recording studio, Dan continues to pursue the same feeling he discovered all those years ago in that orchard: the thrill of hearing a great story carried on the wings of a great song.