{"id":37311,"date":"2018-03-14T16:46:10","date_gmt":"2018-03-14T20:46:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/news\/?p=37311"},"modified":"2018-03-26T08:28:39","modified_gmt":"2018-03-26T12:28:39","slug":"new-faculty-member-david-berry-to-host-march-24-piano-recital","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/news\/2018\/new-faculty-member-david-berry-to-host-march-24-piano-recital\/","title":{"rendered":"New faculty member David Berry to perform March 24 piano recital"},"content":{"rendered":"

Just hearing David Berry describe<\/em> music is an ethereal experience. Hearing him actually play<\/em> the piano? Even more so.<\/p>\n

The newest addition to the Eastern Mennonite University music faculty<\/a> will perform Saturday, March 24, in Martin Chapel at 7:30 p.m. The recital is free and open to the public, and a freewill offering will be taken to benefit the music scholarship fund.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
David Berry tours regularly and has won numerous piano competitions. He holds a doctorate from The Juilliard School.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Berry earned his doctorate from The Juilliard School in 2011, after graduating from the University of Rochester Eastman School of Music. A native of Syracuse, New York, and winner of international piano competitions, Berry has performed with the Hudson Symphony Orchestra and in Carnegie Hall, and was a featured soloist at the Juilliard School\u2019s Focus Festival.<\/p>\n

His recital selections reflect his musical repertoire. The back-to-back juxtaposition of two sonatas, he said, centuries and continents apart in their writing, demonstrates the versatility of the form: Mozart\u2019s F major sonata has \u201cextraordinary ideas, charm, elegance, playfulness, deep lyricism.\u201d The second piece, George Walker\u2019s Piano Sonata No. 2, is \u201cvery dark\u201d and \u201cfilled with biting dissonance.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another, \u201cTroubled Water\u201d by Margaret Bonds, is themed on the spiritual \u201cWade in the Water\u201d and blends what Berry calls \u201cRachmaninoff-style piano\u201d with \u201cjazzy harmonies\u201d that reflect the composer\u2019s \u201cHarlem Renaissance sensibilities\u201d and \u201cimmense understanding of pianistic color.\u201d<\/p>\n

Berry will also perform Robert Schumann\u2019s \u201cCarnaval,\u201d a collection of 21 short pieces that picture a masked ball and is \u201cfull of youthful imagination.\u201d In his program notes, Berry writes that the piece \u201cincorporates a musical thread\u201d that is a \u201cword game\u201d based on the German letters for musical notes in the piece, which represent the composer\u2019s and other people\u2019s names.<\/p>\n

And then \u2013 \u201cif the audience can stand it,\u201d he said \u2013 he\u2019ll offer \u201ca fun little encore, something jazzy. We\u2019ll see what happens.\u201d<\/p>\n

Two musical worlds<\/strong><\/h3>\n
\"\"<\/a>
David Berry’s love of music has its roots in Baptist hymnals, blues guitar, Beethoven and Coltrane.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Growing up, Berry was simultaneously immersed in two different musical worlds.<\/p>\n

His dad played blues guitar, and the two jammed as well as played together in church. Berry had the Baptist hymnal memorized by age 15, and would play the organ for their \u201clittle Southern Gospel quartet.\u201d<\/p>\n

During the same time, from age five until he went to college, he studied under classical piano teacher George Skafidas who, he said, was \u201cobsessed with Beethoven.\u201d That passion soon had him hooked \u2013 \u201cI was infected,\u201d he said. He listened over and over to a cassette tape with \u201cThe Story of Beethoven\u201d on one side and the Emperor Concerto on the other, and would visit the library for biographies about composers.<\/p>\n

But he was learning much more from Skafidas than just intellectual understanding of music and history.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was this big, passionate character and instilled in me that music is about expression, and that these composers wrote because they had to. It was something inside them that they had to express,\u201d Berry said. \u201cThat stayed with me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Though the lessons were his parents\u2019 idea initially, he said they never had to force him to practice. And because his mother homeschooled him from third grade all the way through high school, Berry had unique opportunities to expand his exposure to classical music, such as attending mid-day recitals at the local museum \u2013 and \u201cearly on,\u201d he developed deep appreciation for not just Beethoven\u2019s works but also those of Schubert, Chopin and other composers.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy parents did a really good job\u201d he said, of helping him and his two younger siblings \u201cfind what are our passions and being creative in how they put that into our education.\u201d One sibling is now pursuing a doctorate in organic chemistry, and the other works in information technology.<\/p>\n

Then, in college, he found yet another musical element.<\/p>\n

\u201cI fell in with the jazz majors,\u201d he said. \u201cI would play something Rachmaninoff or Beethoven, and they would play Duke Ellington or John Coltrane or whatever, and we would trade ideas for harmonies. I added that sound to my already bluesy Gospel thing I was doing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Shaped by teachers<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Skafidas wasn\u2019t the only teacher who shaped Berry\u2019s approach to music \u2013 and now teaching.<\/p>\n

From one professor he learned that music is \u201cimages and analogies and colors,\u201d that for Mozart you need a \u201creally light, crisp sound\u201d as if it were \u201ccarbonated.\u201d To get a rich, full sound, he told him, \u201cimagine dropping a bag of Dominos sugar on the piano from four feet above.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMusic is all about gestures and movements,\u201d Berry said. \u201cSometimes a picture is more helpful than a didactic description to understand the essence of the kind of sound you want to make.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another modeled a \u201cpure beauty in his touch,\u201d Berry said. \u201cIt sounded like he was playing on top of butter.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yet another helped Berry see Beethoven\u2019s late pieces as very probing, massive, large-scale and other-earthly, and described the end of one piece as \u201cthe apotheosis of A-flat major.\u201d<\/p>\n

Vivid terms such as these, Berry said, make a performer think, \u201cOkay, I\u2019m not just playing the end of a piece or hitting this chord. What is the inner essence of this sound, this world of music?\u201d<\/p>\n

Those teachers, he said, \u201cthought beyond the page, thought beyond the syllabus, and captured my heart with how powerful, deep, moving, convicting and expressive music can be \u2013 and really affected me and informed my approach in teaching music,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Career notes<\/strong><\/h3>\n

For years Berry traveled as a performer, in part with Core Ensemble<\/a>, which combines chamber music with theatrical shows based on historical figures.<\/p>\n

Now teaching, along with his continued performing, is a completion of his interests.<\/p>\n

\u201cThose two things live together,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019ve always had a love for academia, for history, and for the larger picture beyond just the notes on the page.\u201d<\/p>\n

When he found EMU online, several things stood out: the university\u2019s emphasis on service, a department where he could pursue his wide range of musical interests rather than be restricted by specialization, and the cross-cultural study program.<\/p>\n

The first time he visited campus, he felt a \u201cwarmth\u201d that \u201cdrew me,\u201d he remembers. \u201cI was hoping it would work out, by the time I left.\u201d<\/p>\n

It did \u2013 and has proved the right family move, too. His wife Jennifer now teaches kindergarten in a Harrisonburg school, their son attends Eastern Mennonite Elementary School, and Berry\u2019s parents, who had been thinking of retiring to Virginia from New York, seized the day and moved to live just 10 minutes from campus.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Just hearing David Berry describe music is an ethereal experience. Hearing him actually play the piano? Even more so. The newest addition to the Eastern Mennonite University music faculty will ... read more about New faculty member David Berry to perform March 24 piano recital<\/span><\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":37313,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7931,17562,5183],"tags":[17633],"feature":[17427,17423,17241],"class_list":["post-37311","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts","category-digest","category-music","tag-david-berry","feature-emu-home-page-feature","feature-featured-undergrad","feature-news-feature"],"yoast_head":"\nNew faculty member David Berry to perform March 24 piano recital - EMU News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/news\/2018\/new-faculty-member-david-berry-to-host-march-24-piano-recital\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"New faculty member David Berry to perform March 24 piano recital - EMU News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Just hearing David Berry describe music is an ethereal experience. 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