Donald Berman
Biography Donald Berman
Donald Berman
A multidimensional pianist, pedagogue, and scholar, Donald Berman has won tremendous acclaim for his "stupendous abilities, both athletic and intellectual" (Boston Sunday Globe) and performances hailed as "stunning, adventurous, and substantive" (New York Times).
With an emphasis on presenting American music of the 20th and 21st centuries, Berman has brought recital programs both technically challenging and exceptionally innovative and insightful to some of the most important stages for new music — from Carnegie's Weill and Zankel Halls to National Sawdust and Le Poisson Rouge in the U.S., as well as major venues across Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. An enthusiastic commissioner of new music, he has added more than 200 works to the contemporary canon — many of which he performs alongside classical repertoire to provoke new and fascinating revelations and connections across periods and styles.
Berman's body of work as a recording artist demonstrates the breadth and depth of his engagement with the music of our time. His albums have included numerous world-premiere recordings, as well as illuminating performances of previously unknown works of 20th-century American composers, including Charles Ives (The Unknown Ives, Vols. I & II), Carl Ruggles (The Uncovered Ruggles), and Elliott Carter and Roger Sessions (Americans in Rome). As concerto soloist and chamber musician, Berman's discography includes collaborations with the Boston Modern Orchestra Project (George Perle: Serenades), soprano Susan Narucki (This Island, The Light That Is Felt: Songs of Charles Ives, and the Grammy-nominated The Edge of Silence), and the Borromeo Quartet (The Worlds Revolve). Upcoming albums include a survey of Elena Ruehr songs with baritone Stephen Salters and a new recording of Ives's Concord Sonata, to be released during the composer's sesquicentennial celebrations in 2024 by Avie Records. Mr. Berman's other recordings can be found on Naxos, ARSIS Audio, Bridge, New World, CRI, Koch, Centaur, Newport Classics, Accurate,Capstone Records and BMOP Sound.
A fellow of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Studies, Berman currently serves as Chair of Keyboard Studies at Longy School of Music of Bard College and leads Tufts University's New Music Ensemble. He is also the General Editor of three volumes of Ives's Shorter Works for Piano — a titanic project representing 30 years of scholarship and editing — and President and Treasurer of the Charles Ives Society, where he is leading an extensive expansion of the Society's digital archives on charlesives.org.
Berman's trajectory as a musician and scholar was set in motion by four important teachers: Mildred Victor, George Barth, John Kirkpatrick (who premiered Ives's Concord Sonata in 1939), and legendary pedagogue Leonard Shure.
