David Leisner

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

On October 14, Bright Shiny Things will release the recording of Franz Schubert’s Die Schöne Müllerin in David Leisner’s arrangement for baritone and guitar, with baritone, Michael Kelly and Leisner. This 20-song cycle is a landmark of the vocal repertoire and one of the most beloved works of all time. On November 18, Azica will release Letter to the World, an album of vocal chamber music by David Leisner. It…

David Leisner will premiere 5 short works that he commissioned from his friends, Pierre Jalbert, Laura Kaminsky, Chester Biscardi, Bun Ching Lam and João Luiz in the spring of 2023. The first performances will take place on April 20 at the Morgan Library in New York, in the wonderful Gilder Lehrman Hall, and on April 16 on the Chatter Series in Albuquerque, NM. The program will also include works from…

Pepe Romero has commissioned a guitar concerto from David Leisner. This work for guitar and orchestra will be premiered with conductor Michael Palmer in the late summer of 2023 at the new Hamptons Festival of Music in New York. David is very honored and excited to write the concerto this summer.