A native of Santiago, Chile, Professor Daniel Party grew up in a musical family. After finishing undergraduate degrees in physics and classical guitar, he came to the United States to pursue his Ph.D. in musicology. Professor Party's research focuses on the music of Latin America and Latino communities as well as contemporary classical music. He joined the Saint Mary's music faculty in 2005.

“What I like about teaching in a context like this is that I'm teaching our music majors way more than music,” says Party. “There are many days where I feel that music is only about 50 percent of what I'm doing in class. I'm teaching them how to write; I'm teaching them how to think critically. We're talking about music, but sometimes we're talking about culture, art, architecture, issues of gender, issues of race … I feel that learning about all those things will help them no matter what they do.