DAVID FRIEND
piano, music, etc

BIO
David Friend is taking piano performance in new directions. As a chamber musician, soloist, and in interdisciplinary collaborations and his own creative work, he is dedicated to projects that push boundaries and explore new ideas about what contemporary pianism and experimental music can be in the twenty-first century. A fearless performer, he has been hailed by critics for his adventurous programming, his commanding technique, and his captivating performances. His playing has been described as "astonishingly compelling" (Washington Post) and the New York Times calls him "[one] of the finest, busiest pianists active in New York's contemporary-classical scene." In 2017, he was featured on Third Coast Percussion's album celebrating the music of Steve Reich, which won the Grammy Award for Best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble Performance.

David Friend has performed at major venues around the world including Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Disney Hall, Royal Festival Hall (London), Museo Reina Sofia (Madrid), the Chan Centre (Vancouver), and the National Centre for the Performing Arts (Beijing). He has also performed extensively in alternative, underground, and DIY venues including (Le) Poisson Rouge, Issue Project Room, Roulette, National Sawdust, MoMA P.S. 1, St. Ann's Warehouse, REDCAT, Betalevel (Los Angeles), Constellation (Chicago), Cincinnati Contemporary Arts Center, LiteraturHaus (Copenhagen), Music Gallery (Toronto), and Logos Tetrahedron (Ghent), and has appeared in major festivals including the Lincoln Center Festival, Mostly Mozart Festival, Aspen Music Festival, Gilmore International Keyboard Festival, Whitney Biennial, TIME:SPANS Festival, Beijing Modern Music Festival, Los Angeles Philharmonic's Next on Grand Festival, Prague Spring Festival, Ecstatic Music Festival,  Rewire Festival (the Hague), Bang on a Can Marathon, CTM Festival (Berlin), Big Ears Festival, June in Buffalo, Ultima Festival (Oslo), Rainy Days Festival (Luxembourg), Long Play Festival, the New York Electronic Art Festival, and the Venice Biennale. He has recorded for the New Amsterdam, Harmonia Mundi, Albany, Cedille, Dacapo, Innova, a wave press, and New World labels, and his playing has been heard on radio stations across the country, including on National Public Radio's Performance Today, WQXR's Hammered!, and WNYC's New Sounds.

As a champion of new and experimental music, David Friend prizes the process of collaborating with other artists and has worked with some of the most notable composers of our time including Pulitzer prizewinners Steve Reich, Julia Wolfe, David Lang, Steven Stucky, and Charles Wuorinen. Among many notable projects, he workshopped and premiered Julia Wolfe's Steel Hammer, an evening-length chamber piece that was a finalist for the 2009 Pulitzer prize; he collaborated with Alarm Will Sound on the development and premiere of 'Finding Balance,' a multimedia performance centering on Hans Abrahamsen's Schnee; and in 2019, he premiered Reich/Richter, the collaborative multimedia work by Steve Reich and Gerhard Richter that was commissioned for the opening season of The Shed (NYC) -- with his colleagues in Ensemble Signal, he performed this new work for over 30,000 people over the course of several weeks. 

A dedicated chamber musician, David Friend is a core member of Ensemble Signal, Bent Duo, Hotel Elefant, Grand Band, and TRANSIT New Music. He has also performed regularly as a guest artist with other respected ensembles such as the Bang on a Can All-Stars, Alarm Will Sound, Talea Ensemble, International Contemporary Ensemble, Either/Or, Talujon Percussion, Vigil Ensemble, Le Train Bleu, Mantra Percussion, Orchestra of St. Luke's, Pamplemousse, Ensemble X, Experiments in Opera, Wordless Music Orchestra, Albany Symphony, American Composers Orchestra, and Third Coast Percussion. He was the pianist for the Aspen Contemporary Ensemble for three years and is a frequent collaborator with violinist Laurie Carney (American String Quartet) as the Palisades Duo, which is featured on Parting the Veil: Works for Violin and Piano by Robert Sirota (Albany Records). 
 
David Friend is a founding member of several innovative ensembles: TRANSIT New Music is a collective dedicated to the support and dissemination of new and experimental music by emerging composers from around the world; Hotel Elefant is the "megatalented" (Time Out New York) NYC-based ensemble dedicated to the work of living composers; Grand Band is NYC's groundbreaking piano sextet, the "new-music supergroup" (New York Times) that has been delighting audiences with its unconventional instrumentation and epic performances since debuting at the Bang on a Can Festival in 2012; and Bent Duo is an experimental interdisciplinary project with percussionist Bill Solomon that explores new approaches to music and performance alongside the existing repertoire for piano and percussion. 
 
David Friend also enjoys projects that transcend disciplinary boundaries and collaborations that reconceptualize conventional ideas about musical performance. As part of Jace Clayton's Julius Eastman Memorial Dinner project, he recorded an album and stages performances of a multifaceted project for two pianos, DJ, and vocalist centering on the revolutionary works of composer Julius Eastman. He has developed original performance pieces in conjunction with the Johnson Museum of Art (Cornell University) that incorporate the piano and the performer in unconventional ways, and has also explored creative projects in the realm of sound installation and digital technology. He has worked extensively with artists from other disciplines, including the video art collective Satan's Pearl Horses and a variety of dance projects, and he has performed with innovative musicians from a wide variety of backgrounds such as Bill Frisell (guitar innovator), Lesley Flanigan (sound artist), Laurel Halo (electronic musician), and Ryuichi Sakamoto (Japanese pop icon). As part of Bent Duo, he creates original work in a variety of formats, including 2018's Out of the Into the, which was premiered at the Busch-Reisinger Museum at Harvard University and Ramble, a multifaceted and ongoing project that has included a multimedia sound installation, a self-produced cassette, a handmade zine, and video components. His original multimedia piece Night Cruise was commissioned by ChamberQUEER for the ChamberQUEERantine series, 
 
As a soloist, David Friend is noted for his charismatic performances and his compelling programming. He is a captivating performer of a wide array of solo and concerto repertoire. He has a wealth of experience in numerous traditions of extended techniques and innovative performance practices and has extensively studied the prepared piano music of John Cage. He has lectured on extended piano techniques at institutions including the Aspen Music Festival and School, the Eastman School of Music, Sarah Lawrence College, and Cornell University. He is a fearless concerto soloist and has tackled landmark experimental works for piano and orchestra, such as Cage's Concerto for Prepared Piano and Chamber Orchestra. He has also premiered new solo works by Daniel Wohl, Angélica Negrón, Tim Hansen, and Jerome Begin, among others. He was the concerto soloist in the festival-opening performance of Galina Ustvolskaya's Symphony No. 2 at the 2018 Bang on a Can Marathon, and has performed a variety of concerto repertoire with various orchestras including the Shenzhen Symphony. 

David Friend was raised in southwest Louisiana, a region renowned for its rich cultural and natural beauty. He moved to NYC to study with Phillip Kawin at the Manhattan School of Music, where he obtained both Bachelors and Masters degrees. He furthered his studies at Cornell University with Xak Bjerken, where he focused on experimental and contemporary keyboard performance practices. He completed his doctorate in 2019, and his dissertation focuses on composer and artist Tristan Perich and the New Music Community in the early twenty-first century. He is based in New York City.

David Friend embraces the burgeoning movement for liberatory change in the field of music and organizing for a future in which structural racism, systems of oppression and abuse, and inequity are no longer part of the status quo. He embraces working towards these goals as an individual practice, as well as with ensemble colleagues and musicians and organizations across the field. He is a signatory of the New Music Equity Action pledge.