Photo: Patricia DinelyThe David Chesky Trio performs the Great European Songbook LiveEvents January 14, 2025 119 Bourgie Hall presents David Chesky Trio – The Great European Songbook Grammy-nominated David Chesky is a composer of orchestral works, operas and ballets, an author of children’s books, a jazz pianist, and a world-renowned innovator of audio technologies. Critics describe his music as “highly individualistic,” “memorable,” “dynamic” and “exotic.” David Chesky has earned great respect for his fresh and unique approach to musical compositions, which span the jazz and classical genres. Captivating audiences around the world, The New York Times raves, “Chesky combines a gritty sophistication with street-level energy and currents of exotic folkishness.” Chesky developed his own style of composition heralded as “Urban Orchestral” music, merging classical techniques with sounds emanating from the streets of New York. This unique style has critics raving, “Chesky fuses diverse influences into a musical language all his own.” (Gramophone Magazine). This style produced genre-bending works including his Rap Symphony, and Concertos for electric guitar, piano, violin, and a double concerto for violin and cello, featured on 2011 albums Urbanicity and String Theory. Classics Today praised String Theory, “This music has integrity, and it gets under your skin.” His solo piano album, The New York Rags, was cited by The Absolute Sound as “being one of the best piano albums ever recorded.” Chesky’s ballets, including Hope, commissioned and toured by Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, as well as his Central Park Dances, Urbanicity, and The New York Variations, reflect modern life in a fast city. His full-length children’s ballets, The Zephyrtine, and The Snowbears of Lake Louise, explore fantasy worlds while reinforcing the importance of cultural diversity and acceptance. Miami native Chesky moved to New York in 1974 to officially begin his career as a musician. With an interest in both classical and jazz, he immediately began studying composition with Pulitzer Prize winner, David Del Tredici, and piano with John Lewis of the Modern Jazz Quartet. His blending of genres was first reflected in the culmination of his big band, The David Chesky Big Band, where he performed at every major jazz club and festival including The Village Vanguard, Storyville, and the Newport, JVC and Monterey Jazz Festivals. Still active as a jazz pianist today, Chesky plays and composes for his new group, Jazz in the New Harmonic, incorporating 12-tone and contemporary classical harmonies into jazz, and his Grammy-nominated Latin-jazz fusion, The Body Acoustic. David’s latest jazz trio album is The Great European Songbook, in which he re-harmonizes the music of Bach, Beethoven, and Chopin and sets them into a jazz palette. Artists David Chesky, piano Walter A. Stinson, double bass Jim Doxas, drums Program J.S. BACH/CHESKY Preludes 1, 2, and 6 (from The Well-Tempered Clavier, Vol. 1) Fugue No. 2 (from The Well-Tempered Clavier, Vol. 1) Chorale Prelude Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme BEETHOVEN/CHESKY Ode to Joy Für Elise CHOPIN/CHESKY Prelude No. 4 in E minor, Op. 28 J. STRAUSS II/CHESKY The Blue Danube Thursday, January 23, 2025 at 6:00pm To purchase your tickets, visit: www.mbam.qc.ca/en/bourgie-hall/
