David Korevaar
Hailed for his “wonderfully warm, pliant, spontaneous playing” by the Washington Post, award-winning pianist David Korevaar is in demand as a soloist, chamber musician and collaborator. Korevaar has performed and given master classes throughout the United States, Europe, Asia, and Central and South America. Recent highlights include recitals and master classes in Taipei, and a tour of Brazil, with recitals and master classes in São Paulo, Porto Alegre, Rio de Janeiro, João Pessoa, Recife and Natal. He has also concertized and given master classes in Kazakhstan and Tajikistan as part of the U.S. State Department’s Cultural Envoy program and taught at the Afghanistan National Institute of Music (ANIM) in Kabul.
Korevaar’s active career includes solo performances with the Rochester Philharmonic, Colorado Symphony, Louisville Orchestra, Japan’s Shonan Chamber Orchestra, Brazil’s Goiania Symphony, and with acclaimed conductors Guillermo Figueroa, Per Brevig, Stanislaw Skrowaczewski and Jorge Mester. His performance of John Cage’s Concerto for Prepared Piano and Chamber Orchestra under the direction of Paul Zukofsky was praised by the New York Times “as admirably projected in the devoted and lovely performance of David Korevaar.” David was honored to work with Cage to prepare the concerto.
A passionate and committed collaborator, Korevaar is a founding member of the Boulder Piano Quartet, currently in residence at The Academy in Boulder, for which he curates a chamber music series. He performs regularly with the Takács Quartet, and recently appeared with them on the Great Performers Series at New York’s Lincoln Center. Korevaar performs and records with distinguished colleagues including the New York Philharmonic Ensembles, violinists Charles Wetherbee, Anne Akiko Myers, Vadim Gluzman, Chee-Yun, Harumi Rhodes, Edward Dusinberre, Emi Ohi Resnick and Philip Quint, violists Geraldine Walther and Matthew Dane, cellists David Requiro and Peter Wyrick, flutists Alexa Still and Christina Jennings and the Shanghai, Manhattan and Colorado Quartets. In 2020, Korevaar will continue his association with the Boulder Mahlerfest, with a performance of Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time, as well as a return to the Concerts in the Barn series in Quilcene, WA, with the Carpe Diem String Quartet. He was a founding member of the Prometheus Piano Quartet, and was a long-time member of the Clavier Trio whose artistry was recognized as “exceptional, impressive, fresh and inspired.” Korevaar has appeared on some of the country’s most distinguished chamber music series at Carnegie Hall, the Library of Congress, Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Phillips Collection, Spivey Hall, the 92nd Street Y, the Gardner Museum, the Krannert Center, the Ordway Theater, Kennedy Center, Davies Symphony Hall and for the La Jolla Chamber Music Society, among others.
Korevaar’s most recent addition to his extensive discography of nearly 40 titles is a highly acclaimed disc of world premiere recordings of piano music by the largely forgotten Italian impressionist composer Luigi Perrachio. “Perrachio’s works require a pianist with virtuosic technique and an artist’s sensitivity for producing a wide spectrum of tone color. David Korevaar is the right pianist for these pieces” wrote American Record Guide. This Fall also saw the release of two recordings with violinist Charles Wetherbee, including works by Iranian-American composer Reza Vali issued on MSR, and a Naxos disc of the three violin sonatas by Russian/German composer Paul Juon. He returns to the recording studio this season to record Richard Danielpour’s The Celestial Circus for two pianos and three percussionists with pianist Angelina Gadeliya. Other recent releases include the third volume of Lowell Liebermann’s piano music, a compelling Chopin recital, and world premiere recordings of music for violin and piano by Hungarian-born Parisian composer Tibor Harsányi with Charles Wetherbee. Korevaar is well-known for his Bach recordings, including the Six Partitas, Goldberg Variations, and the two books of the Well-Tempered Clavier – recognized as a Critic’s Choice by American Record Guide. Along with recordings of music by Beethoven, Brahms, Fauré, and Ravel, he has recorded 3 discs dedicated to the solo and chamber music of Paul Hindemith, solo piano music by Ernst von Dohnányi, and rarely heard treasures by French composers Louis Aubert and Jean Roger-Ducasse from the University of Colorado’s Ricardo Viñes Piano Music Collection. His long association with the American composer Lowell Liebermann has resulted in five recordings to date, including three collections of solo piano music, an album with flutist Alexa Still, and a chamber music compilation with clarinetist Jon Manasse, members of the Boulder Piano Quartet, and baritone Patrick Mason.
Korevaar is dedicated to championing the works of contemporary composers and has performed and recorded works by Lera Auerbach, David Carlson, Robert Xavier Rodriguez, Paul Schonfield, Aaron Jay Kernis, George Rochberg, George Crumb, Stephen Jaffe, and performed the New York premiere of Harrison’s Clocks by Harrison Birtwistle. His long-standing advocacy of the music of Lowell Liebermann led to a recent residency by the composer at the University of Colorado. He regularly performs works by University of Colorado colleagues Michael Theodore, Mike Barnett, and Carter Pann, as well as works by aspiring and established composers in his mission to inspire future generations.
Balancing an active performing schedule along with teaching at the University of Colorado, Boulder, Korevaar is a Distinguished Professor, only the second to bear that title in the College of Music and holds the Peter and Helen Weil fellowship in piano. He was also honored by the University in 2016 as a Distinguished Research Lecturer, a first in the College of Music.
In addition to being a gifted pianist Korevaar, who studied composition with David Diamond, has composed works for solo piano, chamber ensemble, and a piano concerto for full or chamber orchestra. His transcriptions of Franz Liszt’s Symphonic Poems Festklänge and Orpheus can be heard on Helicon Classical’s release of Liszt’s Orchestral Transcriptions for Solo Piano with Korevaar at the piano.
Highlights of Korevaar’s media credits include appearances on All Things Considered, Morning Edition, NPR, Performance Today, St. Paul Sunday, WQXR, WDAV, TPR, KFAC, WGBH, WNYC, and Colorado Public Radio.
Korevaar’s honors include the Richard French award from the Juilliard School, honoring his doctoral document on Ravel’s Miroirs, top prizes from the University of Maryland William Kapell International Piano Competition and the Peabody-Mason Foundation, as well as the prize for best performance of French music at the Robert Casadesus International Competition. He was also a winner of Young Concert Artists as a member of the group Hexagon.
David Korevaar began piano studies at age six in San Diego, California, with Sherman Storr—an alumnus and former faculty member of the CU College of Music. At age 13 he became a student of the great American virtuoso Earl Wild. By age 20 he had earned his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from the Juilliard School, where he continued his studies with Earl Wild. He completed his Doctor of Musical Arts at the Juilliard School as a student of Abbey Simon. A very important mentor and teacher was French pianist Paul Doguereau, who had been a student of Egon Petri, and studied the music of Fauré and Debussy with Fauré’s student Roger-Ducasse, and the music of Ravel with the composer.
Prior to joining the faculty of the University of Colorado in 2000, Korevaar taught at the Westport School of Music in Connecticut as Artist-Teacher. He is a Shigeru Kawai artist.
When not performing and teaching David enjoys reading, and running and hiking in the Colorado mountains.
