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POSITION: Associate Professor of Music; Program Director - Music

DEPARTMENTS:
School of Theology, Humanities and Performing Arts
Music
Bach Festival

LOCATION: Main Campus, Harrisonburg | LA 023

PHONE: (540) 432-4226

EMAIL: david.berry@emu.edu

David Berry is an active classical pianist whose performances have been featured in venues such as Carnegie Hall, Merkin Hall, the UW World Series at the University of Washington, as well as live broadcasts of WQXR (New York City). He has been a featured soloist with the Hudson Symphony Orchestra and served as guest artist and adjudicator for the Zelpha Wells Piano Competition. As a performer of new music, he has worked with or premiered works by a number of noted composers, including James Lee III, Jeffery Scott (Imani Winds) and grammy-award winning composer Jennifer Higdon. David was a featured soloist in the Juilliard School’s Focus Festival, All About Elliott, celebrating the 100th birthday of Elliott Carter, and also featured in piano series’ hosted by author David Dubal at the Kosciusko Foundation and the Cervantes Institute. David was the Grand Prize Winner of the Bradshaw and Buono International Piano Competition, as well as a prizewinner in the Thousand Islands International Piano Competition.

An avid chamber musician, David has collaborated with members of many of the nation’s leading orchestras, including the New Jersey, Houston, St. Louis, Dallas, and Seattle symphonies. He has toured and regularly concertized as a resident member of the Jacksonville, Florida based Ritz Chamber Players, The Harlem Chamber Players, and the innovative chamber music theater group, the Core Ensemble. As an arts administrator, David serves as Coordinator of Chamber Music and a member of the artistic planning committee for the Gateways Music Festival at the Eastman School of Music, a biennial festival which celebrates the contributions of musicians of African descent to classical music, and features over 120 players from major American orchestras and university faculties across the United States.

In addition to his accomplishments as a classical musician, David is an avid improviser of jazz, gospel, and popular contemporary piano styles, and also enjoys composing his own concert arrangements of hymns.

David received his Bachelor of Music with High Distinction from the Eastman School of Music, and Masters and Doctor of Musical Arts degrees in piano performance from the Juilliard School where he was a recipient of the C.V. Starr Doctoral Fellowship and Susan W. Rose Piano Scholarship. David’s piano teachers have included Martin Canin, Douglas Humpherys, and George Skafidas, with collaborative piano coachings under Russell Miller and chamber music studies under Seymour Lipkin, Jacob Lateiner, and Jonathan Feldman.

Education

BM, The Eastman School of Music (Piano Performance, High Distinction)
MM, The Juilliard School (Piano Performance)
DMA, The Juilliard School (Piano Performance)

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