B. Mus. (Manitoba), M. Mus. (Western)
classical guitar
David has a B. Music and M. Music in classical guitar performance and has studied with Ray Sealey and Robert Feuerstein. His major graduate paper was an annotated bibliography of the guitar works of Napoleon Coste. Since 1984 he has lived in Winnipeg, working as a guitar teacher, performer, composer and arranger. He serves regularly as a music festival guitar adjudicator in Manitoba and since 1990 has selected the guitar repertoire for the Associated Manitoba Arts Festival syllabus. He has been an active member of the Winnipeg Classical Guitar Society since its inception in 1983 and was the president for four years and has also taught music theory at the college level. He has been teaching at Brandon University since 1984.
David has a strong interest in guitar pedagogy and is familiar with writings of Duncan, Tennant, Carlevaro, Ryan, Shearer, Artzt, Duarte and Romero. He has participated in major Canadian guitar festivals, has played in master classes for David Russell, Alice Artzt, the Amsterdam Guitar Trio, Oscar Ghiglia, Sergio Abreu, Olivier Chassain and the Wilson-McAllister Duo and attended approximately one hundred master classes led by major performers. He continues to develop his own teaching material for beginning students.
Together with flautist Stuart McVey, David recorded a cassette in 1990 on the Canzona label called Music for Flute and Guitar. It is a collection of lyrical pieces, ranging from the 18th to the 20th century, some of which were originally written for flute and guitar but most are arrangements and transcriptions. They range from well-known pieces such as Lully’s Gavotte en Rondeau from the Ballets du Roi and Debussy’s Girl With the Flaxen Hair to lesser-known pieces by Balbastre (1727-1799), Bozza (b.1905) and Desportes (b.1907). David and Stuart have appeared on CBC radio.
In 1999 Productions d’Oz, a Quebec-based publisher specializing in classical guitar music, published three of David’s suites. The writing is mostly modal-tonal with some chromaticism and employing many dynamic contrasts, staccatos, accents and simple rhythmic shifts. Within each suite the pieces are unified by a similar style and tonal feel, with strong programmatic elements and titles.
Early in 2000 Mel Bay Publishers will be publishing David’s guitar transcription of G. P. Telemann’s Twelve Fantasies for Unaccompanied Flute. This work comprises approximately thirty-six pages of music with six pages of introductory text. Besides being beautiful and exciting repertoire, these pieces serve as an excellent introduction to Baroque interpretation for the advanced student. The edition will provide many staccato, slur and phrasing suggestions while clearly differentiating editorial suggestions from Telemann’s original markings.
David is currently working on new composition and transcription projects.