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Music
David Leisner is an extraordinarily versatile musician with a multi-faceted career as a classical guitarist, a distinguished composer, and a master teacher. Leisner’s Dances in the Madhouse, in both its original version for violin and guitar and as an arrangement for orchestra, has received well over 100 performances. His works have been performed worldwide by such eminent artists as Sanford Sylvan, Paul Sperry, Robert Osborne, Juliana Gondek, Susan Narucki, D’Anna Fortunato, Warren Jones, Eugenia Zukerman, Benjamin Verdery, the Los Angeles Guitar Quartet, the Saturday Brass Quintet, the Eastman and Oberlin Percussion Ensembles and orchestras from coast to coast. His music has been recorded for such labels as Newport Classic, Dorian, Centaur, Signum, Athena and Acoustic Music. Mr. Leisner’s music is published by Theodore Presser Company, G. Schirmer, Inc., Columbia Music Company, and Frederick Harris Music Company. Commissions and premieres include Embrace of Peace for the Fairfield (CT) Orchestra, which was described by the Westport News as reflecting "a brilliant intellect in combination with brilliant sensitivity," and Battlefield Requiem for cellist Laurence Lesser and the New England Conservatory Percussion Ensemble. The Twentieth Century Unlimited series in Santa Fe has commissioned a work from him for the St. Lawrence String Quartet and Leisner for the 2000-01 season. He has received grants from the Aaron Copland Fund for Music, the American Music Center, the Alice M. Ditson Fund, the New England Foundation for the Arts, and Meet the Composer. Regarded as one of America’s leading classical guitarists, his superb musicianship and provocative programming have been applauded by critics and audiences around the world. He has been acclaimed as "a triple-threat performer" by The New York Times and a "serious, exploratory and imaginative musician" by The Boston Globe.
Life
David Leisner is a graduate of Wesleyan University. 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. He is on the faculties of Manhattan School of Music and the New England Conservatory of Music.