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David Gerow Irving was born in Kankakee, Illinois to Laurence and Adeline Irving. The family moved shortly thereafter to Streater, Illinois, a year later moving to Connersville, Indiana, and then to Bluffton, Indiana when he was eight years of age.
He comes from a very musical family, about which he gives the following brief description. "My entire family was musical. My mother and father sang in the local church choir and were often invited to sing solos or duets either at the local church, or at a community church in some other town. My father learned the violin, mostly on his own, when he was a boy in Vermont and Minnesota. Later in life he became the Sunday School conductor at his church. My mother played the piano, which she learned to play without instruction, and almost entirely by ear when she was a girl growing up in Streater, Illinois. She played until the age of 96, continuing to play even then for Sunday school church services. She composed the song "Let Not Your Heart be Troubled." My brother, Bill, played the clarinet when he was a boy, but did not pursue it. Ann, my sister, decided at an early age that she was going to become an opera singer. Every Saturday afternoon, during the concert season, she would declare her room inviolate, tune in the Metropolitan Opera broadcasts, and settle in for an afternoon of Aida, La Traviata or La Boheme. When she finished high school, she moved to Chicago, studying voice there, and then turned to professional singing. Ann was one of the leading sopranos in the Kansas City Lyric Opera, where she sang roles like Madam Butterfly, and Gilda, in Rigoletto. She also sang in the Lyric Opera of Chicago, the Chicago Opera Theatre, and appeared throughout the Midwest in various opera companies. She sang one of the leading roles in the national TV production of Lee Hoiby's Summer and Smoke. My nephew Mike Johnstone also showed outstanding talent on the guitar and formed his own professional band in Chicago as lead guitarist. His father, Sydney Johnstone, was a professional club pianist.
"I have had many blessings in life, but by far the greatest bestowed upon me was coming into this world with a counterpart, my twin brother, Darrel. Like me, he became a professional French hornist, and toured with the Goldovsky Opera Company before joining the Atlantic Symphony in Halifax, Nova Scotia. He then turned to the classical guitar, for which he has written many compositions, and two method books, The Keystone of the Guitar, with an introduction by Carlos Barbosa-Lima (Published by The Manhattan Institute for the Guitar) and The Fingerboard Foundation for the Guitar (Calliope Music). The latter is particularly unique and beautifully illustrated." He also wrote an outstanding book on the Kundalini experience, Serpent of Fire, published by Samuel Weiser, Inc."
David Irving began the study of the French horn at the age of 14 with his high school band director and Principal horn of the Ft. Wayne Philharmonic, J. Robert Schlatter. Schlatter's inspired teaching combined with his encouragement and support provided an invaluable foundation for pursuing a musical career. In high school David won many awards and performed movements of the Mozart 3rd and Strauss 1st Concertos and other solos many times in different cities in the State of Indiana. At the age of 16 Schlatter invited him to play a concert with the Ft. Wayne Philharmonic under the direction of Igor Buketoff. In his sophomore and junior years he attended summer music camp at Indiana University in Bloomington Indiana where he played in the band and orchestra. When he was 18 he entered the Army, and after tank training with the 3rd Armored Division at Ft. Knox, Kentucky, was shipped to Germany where he became a member of the 28th Division Band in Goeppingen. Then, at the age of 19, he joined the 7th Army Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Kenneth Schermerhorn. The orchestra was based in Vaihingen just outside of Stuttgart and toured Germany, France, Italy, England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales. (See http://personal.lig.bellsouth.net/lig/r/v/rvrhodes/) Upon completion of his military service, he attended the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston and the Vienna Academy of Music in Austria. While in Austria he joined the Graz Opera and Philharmonic Orchestra. He returned to the United States and (along with his brother, Darrel) toured with Boris Goldovsky's New England Opera in a production of Don Giovanni that included Sherrill Milnes, Spiro Malas, and Ron Holgate. He then moved to San Francisco where he joined the Oakland Symphony under the direction of Gerhard Samuel. He played with many organizations and ensembles including the Marlboro Festival, the Cabrillo Festival, the San Francisco Opera and the San Francisco Ballet. While in San Francisco he began to explore more fully his interest in improvisation and made an LP recording with a Yoga organization as soloist on horn and wooden flute. In the course of his career he was privileged to play with or alongside notable musicians such as Claudio Arrau, Eubie Blake, Arthur Fiedler, Larry Foster, Boris Goldovsky, Robert Hughes, George London, Fritz Mahler, Henry Mancini, Shelly Mann, Zubin Mehta, Gary Olds, Julius Rudel, Gerhard Samuels, Earl Saxon, Kenneth Schermerhorn, Midhat Serbagi, Harold Themmen, Ivana Themmen, and Seymour Wakschal.
After leaving San Francisco, he relocated to New York where he attended Columbia University, studying music composition, and received a B.A. in music, graduating Magna Cum Laude with Phi Beta Kappa honors. He went on to earn an M.A. in music composition. At Columbia he studied music composition with Mark Zuckerman, Max Lifchitz, Fred Lerdahl and Jack Beeson. In New York he founded and directed the new music organization, Phoenix. Phoenix specialized in programming original, high quality new music played by a roster of outstanding performers drawn from New York's many music venues, including the Metropolitan Opera and New York State Opera orchestras. Phoenix has been lauded by the New York Times.
David Irving's compositions have been widely performed in Europe and the United States, where they have been enthusiastically praised in the press. Upon hearing his violin quartet Stars at Carnegie Recital Hall, the internationally renowned Belgian French horn virtuoso and recording artist, Francis Orval, commissioned him to write a work for horn and piano, Spectra 2, for his New York debut. Mr. Orval subsequently performed the composition on his concert tours and at the International Bartok Festival in Szonbathely, Hungary. Baritone Thomas Buckner, heralded for his interpretations and performances of new music, commissioned him to write a cycle of 5 songs for his Merkin Hall Recital. Cited for imaginative, clever direction, Amie Brockway and her highly touted theater company, The Open Eye, invited him to write the music for Once in the Time of Trolls by Joseph Campbell Award-winning playwright, Sandra Fenichel Asher. He worked closely with the acclaimed British opera singer and art song recitalist, Sally Munro, for whom he wrote several songs. He composed A Summer Afternoon for flutist Camilla Hoitenga for performance in Cologne, Germany. Ms. Hoitenga has been called a very polished and brilliant flutist by the German media, and praised in the American Press for her technical facility and warm tone. Kurt Weill specialist Barbara Hess asked him to participate as one of the composers for her New York Emily Dickinson recital. He wrote Madrigal of Roses for Kirsten Sorteberg's Mt. Kisco recital, a performer praised by the press for her original approach as a composer, pianist and soprano. Barry Salwen, Director and Founder of the Roger Sessions Society, and a concert pianist lauded on the international concert stage, performed his piano composition Clouds in Vienna and New York. Conductor Richard Serbagi, music director of the Concert Society of Putnam and Northern Westchester, commissioned him to write the one act opera, The Witch. He based the story on his own research into folklore of the lower Hudson Valley. The world premiere of the Opera was presented in Somers and Carmel, New York, with the composer conducting. New York Philharmoic Hornists Philip Myers (Principal), Erik Ralske and Howard Wall performed his Trio for Horns in Boston and at the 1999 International Horn Society Convention in Athens, Georgia. East/West for Viola and Orchestra was performed by Midhat Serbagi and the 7th Army Symphony at its 2001 Reunion Concert in Lancaster, New Hampshire, and more recently his Quintet for Hecklephone and Double Reed quartet, comissioned by double reed soloist Mark Perchanok, was performed by the internationally renowned New York Kammermusiker.
Today David Irving pursues a variety of musical activities, including
composing, playing the French horn, teaching and conducting. He has taught
for the United Federation of Teacher's Retiree Program, the Continuing Education
Department of Marymount Manhattan College, the Spence School, where he was
the French horn and trumpet instructor, and was on the faculty of the New
School for Social Research and the Continuing Education Division of New York
University.
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The New York Times The most inventive of the vocal
works were David Irving's...[These were] evocatively dramatized Emily Dickinson
settings.
The New York Times ...gives resonant yet pointillistic effect
to the combination of marimba, bass clarinet, violin and cello.
The New York City Tribune [David Irving's lecture] concert
with a format like this one is therefore refreshing in its attempt to bridge
the gap between listener and contemporary composer. This is beautiful
music that has a strong ethereal quality.
The Woodstock Times David Irving's The Music Makers
celebrated music in service of poetry in service of music. The warmth
was palpable, even in the chilly church.
Catskill Mountain News David Irving has created an imaginative
electronic score which evokes the magic of the characters.
The New York Times [The Phoenix Concert] was a serious worthwhile
concert.
David Amram David Irving is a composer who writes from the heart, with a clarity of style and a lyric sense that communicates to all listeners. Long a musician's musician, his compositions reflect his lifetime of experience as a performer whose overview as a composer gives his music a rare touch of beauty, which is good news for contemporary American symphonic, operatic and chamber music lovers.
Otto Luening David Irving's recent works, which employ electroacoustic materials, and his earlier works, as well, indicate that his is an original voice.
Francis Orval, International Concert French honrist and Recording Artist David Irving's compositions are a marriage of sensitivity and harmonic color. He has a gift for successfully personalizing his pieces for the performers.
Amie Brockway, Director, The Open Eye : New Stagings David
Irving is a great collaborator and his remarkable talent make him a fine
addition to any theater project team.
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New York Kammer Musiker (NYC), International Horn Society National Conference (New York Philharmonic Horn Trio, Athens, GA), 7th Army Symphony Reunion Concert, East/West for Viola and Orchestra (Lancaster, New Hampshire), Composers Concordance (NYC), the New York Brass Conference (NYC), Bruno Walter Auditorium (NYC), Cami Hall (NYC), Merkin Hall (NYC), Weill Hall (NYC), Christ and St. Stephens (NYC), Fifth Avenue Presbyterian (NYC) St. Michael's (NYC), St. Mark's Church in the Bowery, World Music Institute (NYC), Eclectix (NYC), The Museum of the American Piano (NYC), Synchronicity Space (NYC), Proteus Ensemble (NYC), the Caecilian Society (NYC), Linda Diamond Dance Company (NYC), National Association of Composers (NYC), The Open Eye Theatre (Margaretville, NY), Erpf Cultural Institute, Arkville, NY), Delaware Historical Society, (Delhi, NY), Streitweiser Trumpet Museum (PA), The Honest Brook Music Festival, (Meridith, N.Y.), The Young Footliters (Iowa City, Iowa), Bechstein Hall (Vienna, Austria), Alte Feuerwache (Cologne, Germany), The Bartok Music Festival (Szonbathely, Hungary), ISAB 2000 (Canada), Columbia University (NYC), Mannes College of Music (NYC), Mt. Kisco School of Music (NY), the Del Arte Quintet (University of Delaware, Newark, DE), Appalachian State University (NC), Indiana University, (Bloomington, IN), Philadelphia University of the Arts (PA), Potsdam College (SUNY, Stony Brook, NY), Western Michigan University (Kalamazoo, MI)
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Featured guest: The Museum of the American Piano, Current Trends in Piano
Music
Featured guest: Tim Page Show, New, Old and Unexpected, WNYC Radio
Featured guest: David Soldier Show, Afternoon Music, WKCR Radio
Lecture
Demonstration: Robury Arts & Community Center, Margaretville, New York
Lecture Demonstration: Delaware Historical Society, Delhi, New York
Lecture Demonstration: Erpf Cultural Institute, Arkville, New York
Guest Panelist: Poetry and Music Conference, Melodious Accord New York City
Panelist: Ohio Council for the Arts
Music Director
The Open Eye Theatre, The Crutaceous Cabaret, Margaretville, New York Concert Society of Northern Westchester, The Witch , Somers and Carmel, New York Phoenix Concerts, New York City
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Upcoming Events, Recent and Present Work
June 13, 2003 Premiere of Quartet for Horns, University of Alabama
June 1, 2003 Premiere of Quintet for Heckelphone and Double Reed Quartet (Oboe d'Amore, English horn, Bassoon and Contra Bassoon). Mark Perchanok, Soloist with the New York Kammermusiker, Deal, New Jersey.
Horn Quartet in three movements. (Completed December 2001)
Voices in the Midst, arrangement for female chorus. (Completed January, 2002)
Trio for Viola, Clarinet, and Piano (three movements). (Completed February, 2002) Written for Gene Becker. (Former Assistant Principal Viola, New York Philharmonic) Future performance planned.
Quintet for Heckelphone and Double Reed Quartet in three movements, commissioned by Mark Perchanok. (Completed March, 2002) Second movement performed by New York Kammer Musiker, April 2002.
The Piper, composition for piano. (Completed May, 2002) To be recorded.
Present work: Night Dance for Orchestra.
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