David Robert Coleman

"Under the economical but musically poignant gesture of the London conductor and composer David R. Coleman in the studio of Hessian radio, instrumental colours, sharply defined and of great contrast emerged like lightning from the silences of the tutti sections. In the soft passages, filled with string harmonics, the musicians of the Frankfurt Radio Orchestra realised Anton Weberns concept of melodic activity on the edge of silence and avoided any overfussiness. Webern´s music in the interpretation of Coleman does not need a sealed off arena to be heard. The music carris on sounding in the listener precisely through its anticlimactic tendencies. The music remains an exclusive and emphatic work of art, in itself complete even though consciously fragmentary." Achim Heidenreich
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung

"What a thunderous opening! The Young Euro Classic concert series returned triumphantly to the Konzerthaus and scored a musical hit with the "Youth Orchestra of the Americas" under the direction of David Robert Coleman." Klaus Geitel, Berliner Morgenpost

"The contours and musical ideas were structured clearly in Pierre Boulez´"cummings ist der dichter"...At the end the conductor David Robert Coleman and the Ensemble Modern received a heartfelt and enduring applause for a concentrated reading of Jean Barraque´s "Concerto" that displayed real joy in fine instrumental colours. What is great about New Music? The musicians themselves provide the answer." Carsten Niemann, Berliner Tagesspiegel, Berlin Biennale


David Robert Coleman with the Montreal Symphony

David Robert Coleman with the Bavarian State Opera

David Robert Coleman is the Associate Conductor of the Bavarian State Opera Orchestra in Munich. In the fall of 2007 he became the first Associate to lead the orchestra in a series of public performances. The program featured two ballets: "Chamber Symphony" a work based on Mahler's "Das Lied von der Erde" and "Der Sturm", drawing on music of Sibelius, Bruckner and Tchaikovsky.

Maestro Coleman will lead the Montreal Symphony in April 2008 in a subscription concert, part of "Air Canada Words and Music Concerts". This engagement will also showcase David Coleman as a composer. Robert Crowley, principal clarinetist of the orchestra, will premiere David's new work.

David Robert Coleman is also undertaking a tour with the Junge Deutsche Philharmonie to Mexico in spring 2008 for a series concerts, one of which will be televised from the Teatro Bellas Artes. The repertoire includes the Brahms 4th Symphony and Penderecki's viola concerto.

Over the last years Maestro Coleman has built up a reputation as a guest conductor working with distinguished orchestras and ensembles such as the Ensemble Modern (Berlin Biennale and Wiener Festwochen 2001), Berlin Symphony Orchestra, Frankfurt Radio Orchestra, Bremen State Orchestra. In 1999 he conducted the three-act version of Berg's "Lulu" at the Mainz State Opera that received warm reviews in newspapers such as the "Frankfurter Rundschau" and the "Frankfurter Allgemeine".

Since 2004 Maestro Coleman has worked closely with the Youth Orchestra of the Americas. He has conducted the YOA in Venezuela, Brazil and Argentina. In August 2006 he opened the Young Euro Classics Festival in the Berlin Konzerthaus with a triumphal concert that included the first German performance of Silvestre Revueltas' "Night of the Mayas" as well as the premiere of his own "Albeniz Phantasy for Viola and Orchestra" with Edmundo Ramirez as the soloist. The concert received ecstatic reviews in a wide range of German newspapers and was broadcast on German public radio.

Born into an English-German family in London, he studied piano, musicology and conducting at King's College Cambridge and at the Royal College of Music London (winning major conducting prizes). He pursued studies in composition with George Benjamin in London and later with Wolfgang Rihm in Karlsruhe.
David Robert Coleman has worked as an assistant to several of the most important conductors of our time - including Pierre Boulez in Aix-en-Provence and Sir Simon Rattle preparing Wagner's "Ring" cycle. In addition, for some six years he worked as assistant conductor at the Southwest German Radio Orchestra Baden-Baden, conducting rehearsals and preparing programs for conductors such as Christoph Eschenbach and Hans Zender. He also worked as an assistant conductor and repetiteur at the Royal Danish Opera in Copenhagen and at the Mannheim National Theatre.

As a composer David Robert Coleman has been performed and commissioned by many leading ensembles and orchestras in France and Germany, such as Ensemble Intercontemporain ("Deux" in 2003), Ensemble Modern Frankfurt, Seville Biennale 2004, Luxembourg Spectral Music Festival 2005, Jena Philharmonic, Oldenburg State Orchestra and the Southwest German Radio Orchestra. In 2001 he was a prize-winner at the Frankfurt Opera Young Composers' Competition, where his chamber opera, "Herzkammeroper", was performed with the Ensemble Modern under his direction. In 2002 he conducted his work "Starry Night" for piccolo, piano and small orchestra with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra in the Berlin Philharmonie Kammermusiksaal.

David Robert Coleman has recently completed an arrangement of Ernst Bloch "Shelomo" for chamber orchestra and 'cello, premiered by Kent Nagano and members of the Bavarian State Orchestra at the opening concert of the Operfestspiele 2007 in the new Jewish Cultural Centre in Munich.

The music of David Robert Coleman is published by Alphonse Leduc Paris.