World-renowned musicians to perform

Internationally acclaimed musicians Wolfgang David and David Gompper are set to perform a guest recital at Northwestern College. The event, which is free and open to the public, will be held Friday, Sept. 28, at 7:30 p.m. in Christ Chapel.

A violinist, David has performed worldwide with many leading orchestras, including the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra and the Berne Symphony Orchestra. He plays on a violin built after 1724 by Carlo Bergonzi on exclusive loan to him from the Austrian National Bank.

The highlights of David’s career include performances at the Great Assembly Hall of the United Nations in New York and in Bangkok for the queen of Thailand. He has also played in major concert halls such as Konzerthaus in Vienna, Carnegie Hall in New York and Wigmore Hall in London.

The winner of many competitions and prizes, David was admitted to the University for Music in Vienna at age 8. He later continued his music education at the Musikhochschule in Cologne and at the Guildhall School of Music in London.

A composer and pianist, Gompper is the director of the Center for New Music at the University of Iowa. His work has taken him to destinations including New York, San Diego, London and Nigeria. Gompper’s compositions have been performed at Carnegie Hall and Wigmore Hall.

Gompper studied at the Royal College of Music in London and earned his doctorate at the University of Michigan. As a Fulbright Scholar, he taught, performed and conducted at the Moscow Conservatory. Gompper is a 2009 recipient of an Academy Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

David and Gompper’s guest recital at Northwestern will feature works by composers such as Edvard Grieg, Maurice Ravel and Camille Saint-Saëns. The concert will also feature one of Gompper’s original compositions, “Star of the County Down.”

David and Gompper have been working together for more than a decade. Gompper has composed 11 works for the violinist, including a concerto David recorded with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra for the NAXOS label.

The duo has presented over 100 concerts together, touring throughout the United States and Europe. While their repertoire includes traditional works for violin and piano, the main focus is a combination of late Romantic, standard 20th century and contemporary compositions written especially for them. Four CDs of the duo are available: two on the Albany label, and one each on Naxos and VDE-Gallo.