Pianist David Brooks enjoys a multi-faceted life in music. As a performer, he plays a repertoire ranging from Alkan to Zwilich, spanning the avant-garde and neglected romantics, as well as the established greats. Probing the lesser-known areas of the piano repertoire is as much a priority as performing the enduring warhorses – in recital he is equally likely to play a new transcription hot off the press, as he is to play a Beethoven Sonata.
David was the first prize winner in the 2009 MTNA Washington State Steinway and Sons Young Artists Piano Competition, and in 2010 was a top prize winner in the Seattle Ladies Music Club Competition, which resulted in a statewide tour. He has appeared as a soloist with the Whatcom Symphony, University of Washington Symphony, and the Western Washington University Symphony. In 2009, he performed at Boston’s Gardener Museum and Brown Hall, and the Boston Globe called his playing “especially lush.”Committed to the performance of new music, David has taken part in the world premiers of more than 30 compositions, performing works by Rzewski, Boulez, Cage, Schoenberg, Liebermann, Ornstein, and Feldman, among others.
As a composer and transcriber, David has transcribed a wide array of works for solo piano by composers ranging from Bach to Penderecki. David holds degrees in piano and viola performance from Western Washington University, where he studied piano with Jeffrey Gilliam, viola with Eric Kean, and violin with Walter Schwede. While at WWU, he was awarded the Presser Foundation Scholarship, Western’s highest honor, and was the violist of the Ravenna String Quartet. David still regularly performs chamber music as a violinist and violist. David teaches a studio of award-winning piano students at the University of Washington in Seattle.
Also a graduate student at UW, he is currently finishing his Master’s Degree, studying with Robin McCabe. David has performed in Master Classes for pianists Frederic Rzewski, Margaret Leng Tan, Margo Garrett, Stephen Drury, Alan Chow, and Robert Roux, as well as in chamber music Master Classes for the Emerson, Takacs, and Pacifica String Quartets.