David Leisner

After years of trying to get permission for publishing, David Leisner has succeeded in getting Chester Music to release his arrangement of Solo Violin Music (formerly the Fourth Knee Play) from Einstein on the Beach.  This note-for-note transcription was recorded by Leisner on his Music of the Human Spirit album for Azica.   It is available at: http://www.musicroom.com/se/id_no/01118777/details.html The Editor’s Note was omitted from the publication.  Here it is: “In…

Reporting on Leisner’s new Facts of Life CD, Paul Fowles of Classical Guitar magazine wrote:  “This is a significant and substantial release..As for the Bach, this extended slick of premium baroque demands copious reserves of skill, stamina, and style, and Leisner shows all three in abundance.”

Mary Kunz Goldman of the Buffalo News raved about David Leisner’s new Azica CD, Facts of Life: “This piece [David Del Tredici’s Facts of Life] should be able to claim a permanent place in the solo guitar repertoire. The memorably melody of the first movement harks back to earlier eras while still retaining an individual sound. The second movement is a fugue inspired by Bach, and Leisner directs the listener through…

David Leisner’s Facts of Life CD on the Azica label has just been released! Many years in the making, the album includes the World premiere recordings of two Leisner commissions – David Del Tredici’s 35-minute solo masterwork, Facts of Life, and Osvaldo Golijov’s Fish Tale for flute and guitar, with Tara O’Connor – as well as the Bach Lute Suite, BWV 997.  Available on Amazon.com and all the usual CD outlets.

Stereophile magazine critic John Marks has chosen David Leisner’s Azica solo CD, Favorites, as one of his choices for “Records to Die For”, 2015 (equivalent of best of the year). http://www.stereophile.com/content/2015-records-die-page-5.  He called it “a weighty and entirely musical CD. Miss it at your peril.”

Cathalena Burch of the Arizona Daily Star raved about this recent duo recital: “The Tucson Desert Song Festival kicked off its second weekend with arguably its most interesting song recital: the vocal guitar duo of tenor Rufus Müller and guitarist David Leisner..When Leisner plucked the strings, his fingers dancing over the frets with balletic grace, he sucked you into another dimension. The man has some mad skills, but not the…

Tough critic, Eduard Laurel wrote in his recent CrackCritic blog that the Guitar Plus concert of tenor Rufus Müller and David Leisner last year was “the most moving and memorable recital of the season”.  For the full review: http://crackcritic.blogspot.com/2014/10/david-leisner-supreme-guitartist.html

In the October issue of Stereophile magazine, reviewer John Marks raves about David Leisner’s Hovhaness Concerto and solo Favorites recordings:  “The playing is beyond superb…Leisner’s transcription of the Ciaccona is sublime, and he plays it with reverence for its structure and depth. Most highly recommended, and a candidate for a ‘Record to Die For.’” He also mentions that “David Leisner is not only an accomplished soloist; he is an important composer.”

Theodore Presser Co. has released two new works by David Leisner:  Twilight Streams for cello and guitar, and A Timeless Procession for baritone and string quartet.  Twilight Streams is a meditation on light and dark, fullness and emptiness, in five movements, just recorded by Zuill Bailey and David Leisner for their upcoming CD on Azica.  The text for A Timeless Procession is a poem by the little-known mid-20th-century American poet,…

David just finished recording a new CD for Azica with the acclaimed cellist Zuill Bailey. The album, with music by Schubert, Falla, Leisner, Villa-Lobos, Gluck, Saint-Saëns and Paganini, is scheduled for release in October, 2015.