Danny Driver
Danny Driver (born 1977)[1] is a British classical pianist, who has a special interest in unusual or neglected works, alongside the mainstream repertoire.
Biography
Danny Driver was born and grew up in London.[2] His mother is Israeli, and his first language was Hebrew. His father is a keen amateur violinist. Through his mother he is descended from the Baal Shem Tov (also an ancestor of his wife, the American conductor Rebecca Miller).[3] He studied natural sciences at the University of Cambridge before moving to the Royal College of Music.[3][4] In 2001 he won both the Royal Over-Seas League Competition Keyboard Award and the BBC Radio 2 Young Musician of the Year Competition. He made his Wigmore Hall recital later that year, and has since appeared at Southbank Centre, Bridgewater Hall in Manchester, the Royal Albert Hall, and Symphony Hall, Birmingham.[5]
He has played with such orchestras as the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, BBC Concert Orchestra, the Tel Aviv Soloists, the American Symphony Orchestra, the New Professionals,[5] the Orchestra of Opera North,[4] and the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra. He made his Proms debut in August 2011[4] in Franz Reizenstein's Concerto Popolare.[3]
His chamber music activities include collaborations with violinists Alexander Sitkovetsky, the reader Gabriel Woolf, as well as cellists, singers, clarinettists and others.[4]
Danny Driver gave the United States premiere of York Bowen's Piano Concerto No. 3 with the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra in New Orleans on 29 April 2009.[2] The conductor was his wife Rebecca Miller.[3]
Other composers whose piano music he has championed include Mily Balakirev, Erik Chisholm, Eugen d'Albert, Nikolai Medtner, Max Reger, Clara Schumann and Richard Strauss.[5]
His recordings include:
- the 6 piano sonatas of York Bowen
- the 2 piano concertos by Erik Chisholm
- the 8 Suites by George Frideric Handel
- music by C. P. E. Bach, Mily Balakirev and Benjamin Dale.[5]
References
External links
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