David Leisner
DAVID LEISNER is an extraordinarily versatile musician with a multi-faceted career as an electrifying performing artist, a distinguished composer, and a master teacher.
“Among the finest guitarists of all time”, according to American Record Guide, David Leisner's career began auspiciously with top prizes in both the 1975 Toronto and 1981 Geneva International Guitar Competitions. His recent seasons have taken him around the US, including his solo debut with the Atlanta Symphony, a major tour of Australia and New Zealand, and debuts and reappearances in China, Japan, the Philippines, Germany, Hungary, Switzerland, Austria, Denmark, Sweden, Ireland, the U.K., Italy, Czech Republic, Greece, Puerto Rico, Canada and Mexico. An innovative three-concert series at Weill Recital Hall in Carnegie Hall included the first all-Bach guitar recital in New York’s history, and currently he is the Artistic Director of Guitar Plus, a New York series devoted to chamber music with the guitar. Recently, Leisner has been performing in duo with both the sensational young baritone, Michael Kelly and with guitar legend, Eduardo Fernández. He has also performed chamber music at the Santa Fe, Vail Valley, Rockport, Cape and Islands, Bargemusic, Bay Chamber, Portland, Sitka, Crested Butte, Music in the Vineyards and Angel Fire Festivals, with Tara O’Connor, Eugenia Zukerman, Rufus Müller, Kurt Ollmann, Lucy Shelton, Ida Kavafian, Mark Peskanov, Zuill Bailey, the St. Lawrence, Vermeer and Enso Quartets and many others. Celebrated for expanding the guitar repertoire, David Leisner has premiered works by many important composers, including David Del Tredici, Virgil Thomson, Ned Rorem, Philip Glass, Richard Rodney Bennett, Peter Sculthorpe and Osvaldo Golijov, while spearheading the revival of neglected 19th-century composers J.K. Mertz and Wenzeslaus Matiegka.
A featured recording artist for Azica Records, Leisner has released 9 highly acclaimed CDs, including the most recent, Arpeggione with cellist Zuill Bailey, and Facts of Life, featuring the premiere recordings of commissioned works by Del Tredici and Golijov. Naxos produced his recording of the Hovhaness Concerto with Gerard Schwarz and the Berlin Radio Orchestra. Other CDs include the Koch recording of Haydn Quartet in D with the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival and Hovhaness Spirit of Trees for Telarc with harpist Yolanda Kondonassis. And Mel Bay Co. released a solo concert DVD called Classics and Discoveries.
Mr. Leisner is also a highly respected composer noted for the emotional and dramatic power of his music. Fanfare magazine described it as “rich in invention and melody, emotionally direct, and beautiful”. South Florida Classical Review called him “an original and arresting compositional voice.” Recent commissioners include the baritone Wolfgang Holzmair, Cavatina Duo and Cedille Records, Symphony Space and the Brasil Guitar Duo, a consortium of the New York City Classical Guitar Society and the All-Virgina Guitar Ensemble and the Legato Foundation, guitarists Steve Cowan and João Luiz, Arc Duo, Stones River Chamber Players (TN), Fairfield Orchestra (CT), Red Cedar Chamber Music (IA), and the Twentieth Century Unlimited Series (NM). Recordings of his works are currently available on the Sony Classical, ABC, Dorian, Azica, Cedille, Centaur, CAG, Town Hall, Signum, Acoustic Music, Athena and Barking Dog labels. The Cavatina Duo’s recording of his complete works for flute and guitar, Acrobats (Cedille) was released to exceptionally strong reviews. His compositions are mostly published by Merion Music/Theodore Presser Co., as well as AMP/G. Schirmer, Doberman-Yppan and Columbia Music.
David Leisner is currently the Chair of the guitar department at the Manhattan School of Music. He taught for over two decades at the New England Conservatory and is in demand as a master class teacher worldwide. His ground-breaking book about ergonomic guitar technique, called Playing with Ease, is published by Oxford University Press. Primarily self-taught as both guitarist and composer, he briefly studied guitar with John Duarte, David Starobin and Angelo Gilardino and composition with Richard Winslow, Virgil Thomson, Charles Turner and David Del Tredici.
www.davidleisner.com