David Pereira
Encyclopedia
David Pereira is an Australia
n classical cellist
, considered one of the finest working today. He was Senior Lecturer in Cello at the Canberra School of Music
from 1990-2008.
Pereira was born in Macksville
, New South Wales
in 1953, moved to Young
at the age of five and then to Leura
. He studied with John Painter at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music
1972-75 and graduated as "Student of the Year". He also studied with Fritz Magg at Indiana University
and completed a Masters Degree in Cello Performance (1976-79).
His early work included Musica Viva Australia
tours of the Outback
with Richard Goldner
and Charmian Gadd.
He played with the Australia Ensemble
for 11 years, and was Principal Cellist of the Australian Chamber Orchestra
(seven years) and of the Sydney Symphony (three years). He has also played with Flederman, the Seymour Group, the String Soloists of the Berlin Philharmonic, Felix Ayo
, the Chilingirian Quartet, Roger Woodward
, Geoffrey Tozer
, Ian Munro
, and the Sydney String Quartet.
Pereira has performed all the cello concertos and major concertante pieces from the standard repertoire (Dvořák
, Elgar
, Schumann
, Saint-Saëns
, Johann Christian
and Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach
, Beethoven
's Triple Concerto
, Brahms
's Double Concerto
, Bruch
's Kol Nidrei) as well as premiering concertos written for him by Australian composers such as Richard Mills
, Barry Conyngham
, David Lumsdaine
, Larry Sitsky
, Mary Finsterer
and Bruce Cale
.
He has appeared with the major orchestras in Australia and New Zealand. He has appeared in Europe, Russia and the United States with the Australian Chamber Orchestra and the Australia Ensemble, at venues such as Wigmore Hall
, Queen Elizabeth Hall
, the Concertgebouw
, Lincoln Center
and the United Nations
(with Stuart Challender
and Dame Joan Sutherland
). There have also been appearances in China
, India
, the Philippines
and Japan
.
He has recorded the complete works for cello by Peter Sculthorpe
and Einojuhani Rautavaara
(with Ian Munro
) and the complete solo cello suites of Johann Sebastian Bach
, among a number of other recordings.
He has won many awards including twice winning the Sounds Australian Award for the Best Performance of an Australian Composition (Carl Vine
's Inner World; David Lumsdaine
's Garden of Earthly Delights). Apart from the new concertos mentioned above, David Pereira has premiered many other new Australian works, by composers such as Carl Vine
, Peter Sculthorpe
, Ross Edwards
, Nigel Westlake
, Elena Kats-Chernin
, Mike Nock
, Roger Dean
, Tristram Cary
, Roger Frampton
, Anne Boyd
and Nigel Butterley
.
He has written three books on cello technique. The third - "The Larrikin Cellist" (2008) - offers valuable advice to the serious cello student, for example, to play as one wants to, not as one thinks one ought to.
In 2005 and 2006, David Pereira fell seriously ill. He sought hospitalization (winter of both years) and was diagnosed with OCD and Depression. Expert psychiatric and psychological interventions eventually proved helpful, but anti-depressants caused tremor that made cello playing impossible. By mid-2007 he had recovered completely and discontinued his drug regimen. He then quickly returned to full professional functioning. He is a Patron of the Mental Health Foundation (ACT).
Pereira runs his own cello-focused subscription recital series at the Wesley Music Centre in Canberra and teaches cello there, at the ANU School of Music, and at the Young Regional School of Music. In 2008 he made a series of recordings of his performances playing a cello which forms part of the A. E. Smith quartet of musical instruments held by the National Museum of Australia. The following year he played in solo and chamber capacities in the Arts in the Valley and Canberra International Music festivals.
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
n classical cellist
Cello
The cello is a bowed string instrument with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is a member of the violin family of musical instruments, which also includes the violin, viola, and double bass. Old forms of the instrument in the Baroque era are baryton and viol .A person who plays a cello is...
, considered one of the finest working today. He was Senior Lecturer in Cello at the Canberra School of Music
ANU School of Music
The School of Music is a school within the Faculty of Arts of the Australian National University. It consists of four buildings, including the main School of Music building - which contains Llewellyn Hall - and the Peter Karmel Building....
from 1990-2008.
Pereira was born in Macksville
Macksville, New South Wales
Macksville is a small town on the Nambucca River in Nambucca Shire, New South Wales, Australia. It is halfway between Sydney and Brisbane.-Town information:...
, New South Wales
New South Wales
New South Wales is a state of :Australia, located in the east of the country. It is bordered by Queensland, Victoria and South Australia to the north, south and west respectively. To the east, the state is bordered by the Tasman Sea, which forms part of the Pacific Ocean. New South Wales...
in 1953, moved to Young
Young, New South Wales
-Demographics:On census night, 7 August 2001, there were 6,821 people counted in Young. There were 238 people who identified as being of Indigenous origin in the 2001 Census...
at the age of five and then to Leura
Leura, New South Wales
Leura is a suburb in the City of Blue Mountains Local Government Area 109 km west of Sydney in New South Wales, Australia. It is one of the series of small towns stretched along the Blue Mountains railway line and Great Western Highway that bisects the Blue Mountains National Park. It is...
. He studied with John Painter at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music
Sydney Conservatorium of Music
The Sydney Conservatorium of Music is one of the oldest and most prestigious music schools in Australia...
1972-75 and graduated as "Student of the Year". He also studied with Fritz Magg at Indiana University
Indiana University
Indiana University is a multi-campus public university system in the state of Indiana, United States. Indiana University has a combined student body of more than 100,000 students, including approximately 42,000 students enrolled at the Indiana University Bloomington campus and approximately 37,000...
and completed a Masters Degree in Cello Performance (1976-79).
His early work included Musica Viva Australia
Musica Viva Australia
Musica Viva Australia is the oldest independent performing arts organisation in Australia and the world's largest entrepreneur of chamber music. It was formed in 1945 in Sydney by violist Richard Goldner...
tours of the Outback
Outback
The Outback is the vast, remote, arid area of Australia, term colloquially can refer to any lands outside the main urban areas. The term "the outback" is generally used to refer to locations that are comparatively more remote than those areas named "the bush".-Overview:The outback is home to a...
with Richard Goldner
Richard Goldner
Richard Goldner was a Romanian-born, Viennese-trained Australian violist, pedagogue and inventor. He founded Musica Viva Australia in 1945, which became the world's largest entrepreneurial chamber music organisation. The Goldner String Quartet was named in his memory.-Biography:Richard Goldner...
and Charmian Gadd.
He played with the Australia Ensemble
Australia Ensemble
Australia Ensemble @UNSW is an Australian Chamber Group active since 1980.The group was founded after a proposal put to the University of New South Wales by musicologist Roger Covell and clarinettist Murray Khouri, then colleagues at the University. Since that time it has occupied a prominent...
for 11 years, and was Principal Cellist of the Australian Chamber Orchestra
Australian Chamber Orchestra
The Australian Chamber Orchestra was founded by cellist John Painter in 1975. Richard Tognetti was appointed Lead Violin in 1989 and subsequently appointed Artistic Director....
(seven years) and of the Sydney Symphony (three years). He has also played with Flederman, the Seymour Group, the String Soloists of the Berlin Philharmonic, Felix Ayo
Felix Ayo
Felix Ayo, , is an internationally renowned violinist, who is often a soloist, and is a performer of chamber music, a teacher and recording artist with a career that has spanned more than fifty years.-Early career:...
, the Chilingirian Quartet, Roger Woodward
Roger Woodward
Roger Woodward AC OBE is an Australian classical concert pianist.-Biography:Roger Woodward was born in 1942 in Chatswood, a suburb of Sydney, the youngest of four children to Gladys and Frank Woodward...
, Geoffrey Tozer
Geoffrey Tozer
Geoffrey Tozer was an Australian classical pianist and composer. As a child prodigy, he composed an opera at the age of eight, and became the youngest recipient of a Churchill Fellowship award at 13...
, Ian Munro
Ian Munro (pianist)
Ian Munro is an Australian pianist, composer, writer and music educator. His career has taken him to over 30 countries in Europe, Asia, North America and Australasia.-Biography:...
, and the Sydney String Quartet.
Pereira has performed all the cello concertos and major concertante pieces from the standard repertoire (Dvořák
Cello Concerto (Dvorák)
The Cello Concerto in B minor, Op. 104, B. 191, by Antonín Dvořák was the composer's last solo concerto, and was written in 1894–1895 for his friend, the cellist Hanuš Wihan, but premiered by the English cellist Leo Stern.- Structure :...
, Elgar
Cello Concerto (Elgar)
Edward Elgar's Cello Concerto in E minor, Op. 85, his last notable work, is a cornerstone of the solo cello repertoire. Elgar composed it in the aftermath of the First World War, by which time his music had gone out of fashion with the concert-going public...
, Schumann
Cello Concerto (Schumann)
The Cello Concerto in A minor, Op. 129, by Robert Schumann was completed in a period of only two weeks, between 10 October and 24 October 1850, shortly after Schumann became the music director at Düsseldorf.The concerto was never played in Schumann's lifetime...
, Saint-Saëns
Camille Saint-Saëns
Charles-Camille Saint-Saëns was a French Late-Romantic composer, organist, conductor, and pianist. He is known especially for The Carnival of the Animals, Danse macabre, Samson and Delilah, Piano Concerto No. 2, Cello Concerto No. 1, Havanaise, Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso, and his Symphony...
, Johann Christian
Johann Christian Bach
Johann Christian Bach was a composer of the Classical era, the eleventh and youngest son of Johann Sebastian Bach. He is sometimes referred to as 'the London Bach' or 'the English Bach', due to his time spent living in the British capital...
and Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach
Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach
right|250pxCarl Philipp Emanuel Bach was a German Classical period musician and composer, the fifth child and second son of Johann Sebastian Bach and Maria Barbara Bach...
, Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven was a German composer and pianist. A crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music, he remains one of the most famous and influential composers of all time.Born in Bonn, then the capital of the Electorate of Cologne and part of...
's Triple Concerto
Triple Concerto (Beethoven)
Ludwig van Beethoven's Concerto for Violin, Cello, and Piano in C Major, Op. 56, more commonly known as the Triple Concerto, was composed in 1803 and later published in 1804 under Breitkopf & Hartel. The choice of the three solo instruments effectively makes this a concerto for piano trio and the...
, Brahms
Johannes Brahms
Johannes Brahms was a German composer and pianist, and one of the leading musicians of the Romantic period. Born in Hamburg, Brahms spent much of his professional life in Vienna, Austria, where he was a leader of the musical scene...
's Double Concerto
Double Concerto (Brahms)
The Double Concerto in A minor, Op. 102, by Johannes Brahms is a concerto for violin, cello and orchestra.- Origin of the work :The Double Concerto was Brahms' final work for orchestra. It was composed in the summer of 1887, and first performed on 18 October of that year in the Gürzenich in Köln,...
, Bruch
Max Bruch
Max Christian Friedrich Bruch , also known as Max Karl August Bruch, was a German Romantic composer and conductor who wrote over 200 works, including three violin concertos, the first of which has become a staple of the violin repertoire.-Life:Bruch was born in Cologne, Rhine Province, where he...
's Kol Nidrei) as well as premiering concertos written for him by Australian composers such as Richard Mills
Richard Mills
Richard John Mills AM, DMus BA Qld, is an Australian conductor and composer. He currently works as Artistic Director of the West Australian Opera and Artistic Consultant with Orchestra Victoria...
, Barry Conyngham
Barry Conyngham
Emeritus Professor Barry Conyngham AM is an Australian composer and academic. He has over seventy published works and over thirty recordings featuring his compositions, and his works have been premiered or performed in Australia, Japan, North and South America, the United Kingdom and Europe. His...
, David Lumsdaine
David Lumsdaine
David Lumsdaine is an Australian composer. He studied at the New South Wales Conservatorium of Music . He moved to England in 1952 and for a while shared a flat with fellow expatriate, the poet Peter Porter, with whom he collaborated on several projects including the cantata Annotations of...
, Larry Sitsky
Larry Sitsky
Lazar Sitsky AM, usually referred to as Larry Sitsky, born 10 September 1934, is an Australian composer, pianist, and music educator and scholar...
, Mary Finsterer
Mary Finsterer
-Life:Mary Finsterer was born in Canberra, Australia, and graduated in 1987 with a Bachelor of Music degree from the University of Melbourne. A recipient of the Royal Netherlands Government Award in 1993, she continued her studies in Amsterdam with Louis Andriessen, then returned to Australia and...
and Bruce Cale
Bruce Cale
Bruce Cale is an Australian jazz double-bassist and composer.Cale began studying music at age nine, and worked professionally in Sydney from 1958. He worked with Bryce Rohde from 1962-65, then moved to England, where he played with Tubby Hayes and worked in John Stevens's Spontaneous Music Ensemble...
.
He has appeared with the major orchestras in Australia and New Zealand. He has appeared in Europe, Russia and the United States with the Australian Chamber Orchestra and the Australia Ensemble, at venues such as Wigmore Hall
Wigmore Hall
Wigmore Hall is a leading international recital venue that specialises in hosting performances of chamber music and is best known for classical recitals of piano, song and instrumental music. It is located at 36 Wigmore Street, London, UK and was built to provide London with a venue that was both...
, Queen Elizabeth Hall
Queen Elizabeth Hall
The Queen Elizabeth Hall is a music venue on the South Bank in London, United Kingdom that hosts daily classical, jazz, and avant-garde music and dance performances. The QEH forms part of Southbank Centre arts complex and stands alongside the Royal Festival Hall, which was built for the Festival...
, the Concertgebouw
Concertgebouw
The Concertgebouw is a concert hall in Amsterdam, Netherlands. The Dutch term "concertgebouw" literally translates into English as "concert building"...
, Lincoln Center
Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts
Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts is a complex of buildings in the Lincoln Square neighborhood of New York City's Upper West Side. Reynold Levy has been its president since 2002.-History and facilities:...
and the United Nations
United Nations
The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...
(with Stuart Challender
Stuart Challender
Stuart David Challender, AO was an Australian conductor, known particularly for his work with Opera Australia and the Sydney Symphony Orchestra.-Early life:...
and Dame Joan Sutherland
Joan Sutherland
Dame Joan Alston Sutherland, OM, AC, DBE was an Australian dramatic coloratura soprano noted for her contribution to the renaissance of the bel canto repertoire from the late 1950s through to the 1980s....
). There have also been appearances in China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
, India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
, the Philippines
Philippines
The Philippines , officially known as the Republic of the Philippines , is a country in Southeast Asia in the western Pacific Ocean. To its north across the Luzon Strait lies Taiwan. West across the South China Sea sits Vietnam...
and Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
.
He has recorded the complete works for cello by Peter Sculthorpe
Peter Sculthorpe
Peter Joshua Sculthorpe AO OBE is an Australian composer. Much of his music has resulted from an interest in the music of Australia's neighbours as well as from the impulse to bring together aspects of native Australian music with that of the heritage of the West...
and Einojuhani Rautavaara
Einojuhani Rautavaara
Einojuhani Rautavaara is a Finnish composer of contemporary classical music, and is one of the most notable Finnish composers after Jean Sibelius.-Life:...
(with Ian Munro
Ian Munro (pianist)
Ian Munro is an Australian pianist, composer, writer and music educator. His career has taken him to over 30 countries in Europe, Asia, North America and Australasia.-Biography:...
) and the complete solo cello suites of Johann Sebastian Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach was a German composer, organist, harpsichordist, violist, and violinist whose sacred and secular works for choir, orchestra, and solo instruments drew together the strands of the Baroque period and brought it to its ultimate maturity...
, among a number of other recordings.
He has won many awards including twice winning the Sounds Australian Award for the Best Performance of an Australian Composition (Carl Vine
Carl Vine
Carl Vine is an Australian composer of contemporary classical music.-Career:Vine was born in Perth, Western Australia. When he was ten years old, he took up the piano. An adolescent encounter with Karlheinz Stockhausen inspired a period as a teenage modernist, a direction which he abandoned in 1985...
's Inner World; David Lumsdaine
David Lumsdaine
David Lumsdaine is an Australian composer. He studied at the New South Wales Conservatorium of Music . He moved to England in 1952 and for a while shared a flat with fellow expatriate, the poet Peter Porter, with whom he collaborated on several projects including the cantata Annotations of...
's Garden of Earthly Delights). Apart from the new concertos mentioned above, David Pereira has premiered many other new Australian works, by composers such as Carl Vine
Carl Vine
Carl Vine is an Australian composer of contemporary classical music.-Career:Vine was born in Perth, Western Australia. When he was ten years old, he took up the piano. An adolescent encounter with Karlheinz Stockhausen inspired a period as a teenage modernist, a direction which he abandoned in 1985...
, Peter Sculthorpe
Peter Sculthorpe
Peter Joshua Sculthorpe AO OBE is an Australian composer. Much of his music has resulted from an interest in the music of Australia's neighbours as well as from the impulse to bring together aspects of native Australian music with that of the heritage of the West...
, Ross Edwards
Ross Edwards
Ross Edwards is a former Western Australian and Australian cricketer.Edwards played in 20 Tests for Australia, playing against England, West Indies and Pakistan. He also played in nine One Day Internationals including the 1975 Cricket World Cup series...
, Nigel Westlake
Nigel Westlake
-Biography:Nigel Westlake's career in music has spanned more than 3 decades.He studied the clarinet with his father, Donald Westlake and subsequently left school early to pursue a performance career in music.Nigel toured Australia and the world playing with ballet companies, a circus troupe,...
, Elena Kats-Chernin
Elena Kats-Chernin
Elena Kats-Chernin is an Australian composer.Elena Kats-Chernin was born in Tashkent , and migrated to Australia in 1975.-Europe:...
, Mike Nock
Mike Nock
Mike Nock is a jazz pianist, currently based in Australia. He began studying piano at 11 and by 18 was performing in Australia. He headed a trio that toured England in 1961 and then attended Berklee College of Music...
, Roger Dean
Roger Dean (musician)
Roger Thornton Dean is a British-Australian musician, academic, biochemist and cognitive scientist.He is married to poet, writer, musician and academic Hazel Anne Smith.-Music:...
, Tristram Cary
Tristram Cary
Tristram Ogilvie Cary, OAM was a pioneering English-Australian composer.-Early life:Cary was born in Oxford, England, and educated at the Dragon School in Oxford and Westminster School in London. He was the son of a pianist and the novelist, Joyce Cary, author of Mister Johnson...
, Roger Frampton
Roger Frampton
Roger Frampton was an Australian jazz pianist, saxophonist, composer, and educator. Based in Sydney, he played a major role in shaping the evolution of Australian jazz...
, Anne Boyd
Anne Boyd
Anne Elizabeth Boyd AM is an Australian composer and Professor of Music at the University of Sydney.-Early life:Anne Boyd was born in Sydney to James Boyd and Annie Freda Deason Boyd ....
and Nigel Butterley
Nigel Butterley
Nigel Henry Cockburn Butterley AM is an Australian composer and pianist.-Life and career:Butterley learnt to play the piano at the age of five. He attended Sydney Grammar School, but as music wasn't taught at the school at that time, he also sought training from the Sydney Conservatorium of Music....
.
He has written three books on cello technique. The third - "The Larrikin Cellist" (2008) - offers valuable advice to the serious cello student, for example, to play as one wants to, not as one thinks one ought to.
In 2005 and 2006, David Pereira fell seriously ill. He sought hospitalization (winter of both years) and was diagnosed with OCD and Depression. Expert psychiatric and psychological interventions eventually proved helpful, but anti-depressants caused tremor that made cello playing impossible. By mid-2007 he had recovered completely and discontinued his drug regimen. He then quickly returned to full professional functioning. He is a Patron of the Mental Health Foundation (ACT).
Pereira runs his own cello-focused subscription recital series at the Wesley Music Centre in Canberra and teaches cello there, at the ANU School of Music, and at the Young Regional School of Music. In 2008 he made a series of recordings of his performances playing a cello which forms part of the A. E. Smith quartet of musical instruments held by the National Museum of Australia. The following year he played in solo and chamber capacities in the Arts in the Valley and Canberra International Music festivals.