Northwestern to host piano and violin recital

Northwestern College will host a duo-recital featuring violinist Wolfgang David and pianist David Gompper on Thursday, Sept. 18, at 7 p.m. in Christ Chapel. The concert is free and open to the public.

David has performed numerous recitals and solos with many of the world’s finest orchestras, including the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra, Johannesburg Philharmonic Orchestra, Berne Symphony Orchestra and New York Virtuosi. He started his studies at the University for Music in Vienna at age eight, studying under the concertmaster of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra. Afterward he attended the Musikhochschule in Cologne and the Guildhall School of Music in London. 

The winner of many competitions, David has performed in over 30 countries. He tours regularly throughout Europe, the United States, South Africa and South Korea. David plays on a violin built in 1715 by Carlo Bergonzi, Cremona, on special loan to him from the Austrian National Bank.

Gompper has been professor of composition and director of the Center for New Music at the University of Iowa since 1991. A pianist, conductor and composer, he studied at the Royal College of Music in London, taught in Nigeria and earned his doctorate at the University of Michigan. He was on the faculty at the University of Texas, Arlington, before coming to Iowa. He spent 2002–03 in Russia as a Fulbright Scholar, teaching, performing and conducting at the Moscow Conservatory.

Gompper’s compositions are heard throughout the United States and Europe. His works have premiered at New York’s Carnegie Hall and London’s Wigmore Hall.

The recital will consist of five duets. David and Gompper will begin playing Johannes Brahms’ Violin Sonata #1 in G major, which is also known as Rain Sonata from Opus 78. Next will be  Ikon, composed by Gompper this year. The second half of the program will include Arvo Pärt’s Fratres, followed by Crux Orthodoxa by Joseph Dangerfield and Claude Debussy’s Sonate pour violin et piano.