David Allen Wehr, piano

David Allen Wehr was born in Princeton, New Jersey, to a musical family. He grew up in Boise, Idaho, where his parents, both graduates of Westminster Choir College, directed a fourteen-choir program at the Methodist Cathedral of the Rockies. Wehr studied with Peggy Neighbors Erwin in Miami, Florida, Edward Zolas at the Cleveland Institute of Music, and Sequeira Costa at the University of Kansas. Early in his career, he won the 1975 Kosciuszko Foundation Chopin Competition in New York City, the 1983 National Federation of Music Clubs Young Artist Award, and Second Prizes in the 1983 Naumburg and 1986 William Kapell Competitions, before winning the Gold Medal at the 1987 Santander International Piano Competition in Spain. The resulting tours took him to thirty countries, including performances in London (Queen Elizabeth Hall, soloist with the London Symphony at the Barbican Centre), Paris (Salle Gaveau), New York City (92^nd St. Y), Washington (Kennedy Center), Madrid (Teatro Real) and Vienna (Musikverein). He played the New Zealand premiere of the Barber Concerto with the New Zealand Symphony, and has also been soloist with the Houston, Chautauqua, National Symphonies and most of the major Spanish and Latin American orchestras.

David Allen Wehr’s recording of piano music by American composers (Barber, Copland, Persichetti, Pozdro and the first commercial recording of Corigliano’s Fantasia on an Ostinato) for Chandos led to a long-term relationship with Connoisseur Society, for whom he recorded 20 CDs, including the complete Beethoven Sonata Cycle and three two-piano albums of Rachmaninoff, Brahms and Dvorak with Cynthia Raim. Other albums include music by Chopin, Wagner/Liszt, Debussy, Griffes, Delius, Mussorgsky, Schubert, Schumann and Utterback. Wehr toured with Community Concerts for 13 seasons as recitalist and pianist with the Sartory Trio. Since 2001, he has been on the faculty at Duquesne University’s Mary Pappert School of Music, where he currently serves as Dean and holds the Jack W. Geltz Distinguished Piano Chair.