Published: Feb. 10, 2017
2016 Distinguished Professor David Korevaar

David Korevaar, the Helen and Peter Weil Professor of Piano, College of Music, will deliver a unique Distinguished Research Lecture on Feb. 24 from 4 to 5:45 p.m. at Grusin Music Hall with a reception to follow. His presentation will feature a combination performance and talk entitled “The score is alive...with the sound of music.”

If you go
Who: University affiliates
What: "The score is alive . . . with the sound of music"
When: Friday, Feb. 24, 4 to 5:45 p.m.
Where: Imig Music, Grusin Music Hall
Cost: Free

Registration is requested for this event. Reception to follow.

Register now

Korevaar, one of two recipients of CU Boulder’s 2016 Distinguished Research Lectureship, presents a lecture performance that focuses on the process of translating notes on the page into music that comes alive for the listener. Beginning with Chopin’s familiar “Ballade No. 3” as an example of how a performance grows from the contexts that surround it, the lecture will move on to Korevaar’s discovery of the Italian composer Luigi Perrachio’s (1883–1966) music for the piano and how he approaches translating into sound music which, though 100 years old, has no performing tradition attached to it. Bringing the discussion to living composers, Korevaar will showcase his work on some recent pieces by his longtime friend, American composer Lowell Liebermann.

Korevaar began his piano studies at age 6 in San Diego with Sherman Storr (a College of Music alumnus), and at age 13 he became a student of the great American virtuoso Earl Wild. By age 20 he had earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the Juilliard School, where he continued his studies with Wild and studied composition with David Diamond. He completed his Doctor of Musical Arts from the Juilliard School with Abbey Simon. Another important mentor and teacher was French pianist Paul Doguereau, who had been a student of Egon Petri, and who had studied the music of Fauré and Debussy with Roger-Ducasse (a pupil of Fauré’s), and the music of Ravel with the composer.

Korevaar has recorded prolifically, most recently releasing a critically acclaimed CD of works by Chopin, and has collaborated with College of Music colleague Chas Wetherbee on a CD of music by Tibor Harsányi—a recording that was inspired by earlier research in the College of Music’s Howard Waltz Library. He has recorded Bach’s music extensively, including the Six Partitas, both books of the Well-Tempered Clavier and the Goldberg Variations.

His scholarly work has included collaborations with College of Music theory professor Daphne Leong on the interactions between performance and analysis, as well as a collaboration with College of Music professor Laurie Sampsel on the contents and provenance of the library’s Ricardo Viñes Piano Music Collection—the source of today’s Perrachio rarities.