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David Alpher, Artistic Director
Internationally acclaimed composer, pianist, and recording artist David Alpher has demonstrated a lifelong commitment to the art of chamber music. He founded and for ten years co-directed the Rockport Chamber Music Festival (RCMF) in Massachusetts, now in its 26th season. In 2005, he brought his experience, vision, and artistry to the founding of the Chamber Arts Festival of Marbletown.
In 1981, RCMF was just an idea tossed about by David and two friends; now it is one of the premier cultural forces in eastern Massachusetts. At RCMF's 20th anniversary celebration, David received a special citation for "enriching the cultural life of New England."
David's most recently commissioned composition, Cantilena for flute and viola, was premiered in November 2005 in Juneau, Alaska. Another recent work, Ritornello for flute and piano, was commissioned by Duo Sereno and premiered by them in Germany in 2002. Also that year, David premiered Song of Witness, a chamber piece incorporating ten haiku written by detainees in Japanese-American internment camps during World War II; the work received its second performance at Trinity Church, Wall Street, New York City, in a 2003 concert to honor the victims of the September 11th attacks. David's multimedia work Las Meninas:Variations, inspired by Velázquez and Picasso paintings, has been performed on 30 occasions, in such diverse locales as Finland, Spain, Brazil, Zion National Park, and Harvard University.
More of David's music can be heard on the CD American Reflections: David Alpher Chamber Music (Ongaku). On the Flute Force CD Eyewitness (Innova), Garrison Keillor narrates David's Land of the Farther Suns, with David at the piano. Never Broken (Center Stage Records) features Song of Witness, sung by baritone Christòpheren Nomura, with the Gainsborough Trio, and David at the piano. David appears as pianist and composer on Lila Deis's CD Classic Lullabys (Alexxandra); he collaborates as pianist and co-arranger with Metropolitan Opera baritone Thomas Hampson and traditional musicians Jay Ungar and Molly Mason on the perennially popular 1992 CD American Dreamer:Songs of Stephen Foster (Angel). David performed with Hampson, Ungar, and Mason at Tanglewood; as part of the Great Performers at Lincoln Center series; and in a nationally telecast PBS concert with Marilyn Horne, Dawn Upshaw, Jerry Hadley, and Harolyn Blackwell.
Chamber Arts of Festival of Marbletown
P.O. Box 663, Stone Ridge, NY 12484
(845) 687-2687 info@chamberartsfestival.org
©2005-2008 Chamber Arts Festival of Marbletown
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