David Leisner

Critic Arlo McKinnon listed Leisner’s new album of his vocal compositions as a “CRITIC’S CHOICE” in Opera News. The review is noteworthy and deserves to be printed here in its entirety: “David Leisner is in the midst of a long and successful career as a composer and guitarist with numerous recordings. As a composer, he’s predominantly known for his vocal music. Letter to the World, Leisner’s most recent release, is devoted to…

Michael Kelly’s and David Leisner’s Schubert performance earned this accolade from reviewer David Shengold of Opera News: “Leisner himself plays wonderfully on this recording, and I don’t doubt that his at times inventive arrangement may tempt light lyric baritones to explore traversing this iconic cycle with a guitarist in tow. His approach is clearly a close collaboration with Kelly in terms of phrasing and a close attention to dynamics. The more one…

The Canadian publication, The Whole Note, just published this review of Michael Kelly’s and David Leisner’s Die Schöne Müllerin recording on the Bright Shiny Things label: “Leisner’s clever adaptation of the accompaniment and his clear and fluent playing provide a transparent, yet supportive framework for Kelly’s nuanced interpretation. The sparser textures produced by the guitar allow Kelly to really shine, especially in the tender, quieter moments, without compromising the effect…

A beautifully written and insightful review by Kathleen Roland Silverstein, just discovered, of Leisner’s two Selected Songs publications for voice and piano (Theodore Presser Co.) from the March/April 2021 Journal of Singing: “The composer has chosen his texts and illuminated them with great care, whether poems by the more illustrious and well-known Dickinson, Yeats, or Whitman, or by contemporary poets like American Elissa Ely. His songs graphically describe the arc, summit,…

On April 20 at 7:30 pm, David Leisner will premiere 5 new works that he commissioned during the pandemic. The composers, Pierre Jalbert, Bun Ching Lam, Chester Biscardi, Laura Kaminsky and João Luiz, will all be in attendance for the event, which takes place at the Morgan Library in New York, in the beautiful Gilder Lehrman Hall. The program also includes early 19th-century repertoire from Leisner’s latest solo album for…

Legendary guitarist, Pepe Romero recently asked David Leisner to write a concerto for guitar and full orchestra. Financial support for the work was generously provided by Brian Hays. The 3-movement work, Wayfaring, is 22 minutes long and will be premiered on Sunday, September 3 at the new Hamptons Music Festival on Long Island, New York, with Michael Palmer conducting the New American Sinfonietta.

[Michael Kelly] “invests himself fully into the role with an expressive performance acutely sensitive to the emotional shadings and nuances of the work…An arrangement that enables the expressiveness of Kelly’s vocal delivery and Leisner’s poised guitar articulations to be heard with maximum clarity.”

Göran Forsling of Music Web International wrote: “Leisner’s transcriptions sound perfectly idiomatic and might very well have been approved by Schubert himself, and he plays them with natural authority…It is a pleasure to savour the sweetness of Danksagung an den Bach, the soft and tender Morgengruss, the heartfelt Des Müllers Blumen sung with beautiful half-voice, and the last three songs: Trockne Blumen, soft, soft!, Der Müller und der Bach, so sensitively sung and the crowning glory Des Baches Wiegenlied. Immensely…

Four world premiere recordings of David Leisner’s vocal chamber music compositions are featured on the newly released album, Letter to the World, on the Azica label. The album has music for soprano and piano, baritone and cello, baritone and guitar, and tenor, violin, oboe and piano. It includes poetry by Emily Dickinson, Emily Brontë, Elissa Ely, Gene Scaramellino, Lao Tzu (in German translations by Richard Wilhelm), and Wendell Berry. Available…

Baritone Michael Kelly and David Leisner have now released their performance of David’s guitar arrangement of Schubert’s beloved song cycle, Die Schöne Müllerin, on the Bright Shiny Things label. You can listen on Spotify and Apple, or download it or buy a CD from Amazon. If you don’t get the CD, you can follow along with the text translations and see notes, bios, etc. here: Schubert CD booklet