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Pianist David Witten, a long-time resident of Clifton, NJ, has received a FULBRIGHT SCHOLAR AWARD to teach and perform in Brazil this summer. Dr. Witten is a Music Professor at Montclair State University, and he has traveled extensively as a pianist and lecturer. During the months of August and September, Dr. Witten’s classes will be at the Graduate School of Music at the Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, in Porto Alegre, Brazil. He will present lectures and workshops on American piano music and also on piano pedagogy, especially the pedagogy of Dorothy Taubman’s approach to piano playing.
Closer to home, Dr. Witten also presents an annual Piano Festival during the month of June, on the campus of Montclair State University. More details about this Festival can be found at www.taubmanuniversalapproach.org.
Pianist David Witten has been described as a pianist “with that rare, elusive quality that charms and fascinates the listener.” (Redondel, Milan, Italy) Witten's international career has included numerous concert tours in Ireland, Finland, Russia, Ukraine, Europe, Mexico, South America, and China.
Witten’s performances have included solo appearances with the Boston Pops Orchestra, the Pro Arte Chamber Orchestra, and various chamber music collaborations with the Shanghai String Quartet, and also with members of the New York Philharmonic and the Boston Symphony Orchestra.
Witten has also been active in contemporary music. He has recorded Piano Music of Nicholas Van Slyck for Titanic Records and has commissioned over a dozen new works for Soli Espri, a chamber trio he founded in Boston with clarinetist Chester Brezniak and mezzo-soprano D’Anna Fortunato. With flutist Sue-Ellen Hershman-Tcherepnin, Witten formed Dúo Clásico; their recording, Flute and Piano Music of Latin America, was issued on the Musical Heritage Society label. Marco Polo Records released Witten’s solo recording, Piano Music of Manuel M. Ponce. His most recent recordings, Piano Music of Nikolai Tcherepnin, and Songs of Nikolai Tcherepnin, with soprano Elena Mindlina, were issued on the Toccata Classics label. released on On Albany Records, Witten recorded solo piano music of Italian composer Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco. His most recent recording was released in 2022: Three Generations: Chamber Music by Ivan, Alexander and Nikolai Tcherepnin.
Witten’s involvement in music has not been limited to performance. He is the editor of Nineteenth-Century Piano Music: Essays in Performance and Analysis (Garland Publishing, 1997), which includes his landmark analytical study of the Chopin Ballades.
Born in Baltimore, Maryland, Witten received his early training at the Peabody Conservatory, and at the Rubin Academy of Music in Jerusalem. His undergraduate studies at Johns Hopkins University led to a degree in Psychology. He received his Master of Fine Arts degree in piano performance from SUNY at Buffalo. Later graduating with high honors from Boston University, he earned the degree of Doctor of Musical Arts in piano performance. His most influential teachers have been Tinka Knopf, Benjamin Oren, Reynaldo Reyes, Walter Hautzig, Leo Smit, Anthony di Bonaventura, and Dorothy Taubman. After twenty years as an active recitalist, chamber music pianist, and teacher in the Boston area, Witten accepted a position at the Cali School of Music at Montclair State University, where he is currently Coordinator of Keyboard Studies.
As an enthusiastic photographer, Professor Witten has won top prizes in several international photography competitions. He has had solo photography exhibitions in Budapest and Milan, and his photographs can be seen at www.davidwitten.com.
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Press release via: Dr. David Witten
