Guest Recital to Feature Wolfgang David and David Gompper

BLOOMINGTON, Ill. — Distinguished composers and musicians Wolfgang David and David Gompper will be featured at Illinois Wesleyan University’s School of Music guest recital on Friday, March 1 at 7:30 p.m. in Presser Hall’s Westbrook Auditorium. The concert is free and open to the public.

Wolfgang David has performed as a recitalist and guest soloist with several internationally renowned orchestras, including the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Johannesburg Philharmonic Orchestra, and the New York Virtuosi. His decades-long music career has brought him to renowned concert halls such as Konzerthaus and Musikverein Hall in Vienna, Carnegie Hall in New York, the Wigmore Hall in London, Victoria Hall in Geneva, and Philharmonie in Cologne.

A young protg, David began his career at just eight years old after being admitted to the University for Music in Vienna, where he studied under the concertmaster of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra. Since then, he has performed at prestigious events, including the Great Assembly Hall of the United Nations in New York and a concert in Bangkok for the Queen of Thailand.

David’s violin, built by illustrious stringed instrument maker Carlo Bergonzi in the sixteenth century, is on exclusive loan to him from the Austrian National Bank.

David has collaborated with a number of other prestigious musicians, and has recorded albums with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and with American pianist David Gompper.

Gompper has performed as a soloist as well as an accompanist for Wolfgang David and other notable musicians, and his compositions have been played at Carnegie Hall, the Wigmore Hall in London, the Moscow Conservatory, and other distinguished venues around the world.

Gompper is a 2002-03 Fulbright Scholar and a 2009 recipient of an Academy Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters in New York City, among other honors.

After completing his studies at the Royal College of Music in London, Gompper taught music in Nigeria before returning to America to earn his doctorate at the University of Michigan. He is currently a professor of composition and the director of the Center for New Music at the University of Iowa.

For additional information, please contact the School of Music at (309) 556-3061.

By Rachel McCarthy ’21