December 17-18, 2008

David Dolan , piano

David Dolan's career is focused on two combined activities: the more traditional one as a concert pianist, and the other, which introduces classical improvisation through his teaching and master classes as well as his concerts. Where appropriate he improvises cadenzas to the concerti he performs, invites the audience to give him themes on which he then extemporizes a fantasia, sometimes simultaneously with other partners.
David Dolan performs extensively at major concert and festival venues as a soloist and in chamber music concerts in Europe, Israel, Russia, USA and Far East, as well as in live recordings and broadcastings for several European radio stations.
David Dolan is a professor of piano, chamber music and classical improvisation at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London, where he is also the head of the Centre for Creative Performance.  He is also teaching at the Yehudi Menuhin School of Music and is leading intensive workshops of creative performance in Aldeburgh. He is frequently invited to give masterclasses and workshops at such major music centers as the Juilliard School of Music in NY, the New England Conservatory in Boston, the Royal College of Music in London, Sibelius Academy in Helsinki, Indiana University in Bloomington, Paris and Geneva Conservatoires, the Tel Aviv and  Jerusalem Music Academies, the Jerusalem Music Center, the Tchaikovsky Conservatory in Moscow, and others.
Yehudi Menuhin's reaction to his solo CD 'When Interpretation and Improvisation get together', which includes improvisations and works influenced by improvisations, was: 'David Dolan is giving new life to classical music'.
Born in Israel, Dr. David Dolan’s PhD research (dissertation advisor Prof. Dalia Cohen) examined similarities between emotional expression in speech and musical extemporization. He obtained his BMus and Artist Diploma - Summa Cum Laude from the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance where he studied piano with Sonia Valin and Alexander Tamir, composition and improvisation with Haim Alexander. Subsequently he continued his studies with Leon Fleisher at the Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore, and with Claude Frank in New York. In 1977 he participated in Arthur Rubinstein's master class at the Jerusalem Music Center.
For more information please visit http://www.david-dolan.com.