David Earl

David Earl
David Earl in September 2016
Born	1951 (age 65–66) Stellenbosch, South Africa
Occupation	Composer, pianist
Years active	1966–present

David Earl (born 1951) is a South African composer and pianist. He was educated at Rondebosch Boys' High School. He made his professional debut at the age of sixteen when he broadcast Bach, Chopin and Chabrier on the SABC. In 1968, he performed Felix Mendelssohn's Piano Concerto No 1 with the Cape Town Symphony Orchestra. In 1971, he moved to London where he studied at Trinity College of Music. He studied under Jacob Kaletsky and Richard Arnell. After a live début broadcast recital on BBC Radio 3 in 1974, his first recital at Wigmore Hall was reported as "stylish and powerful" by The Times. In 1975, he was selected as one the Young Musicians of the Year by the Greater London Arts Association. He also won first prize in the 1976 SABC Piano Competition. He was described by the Daily Telegraph as having "remarkable gifts of style, technical mastery and artistry". He made his début as a composer in the 1977 when he premiered his own Piano Suite No 1 Mosaics at Wigmore Hall. His concerto repertoire includes the Viennese classics, many from the nineteenth century, and amongst those from the 20th, the piano concertos of Arthur Bliss and John Joubert, both of which he studied with the composers. Conductors he has appeared with include Hugo Rignold, Maurice Handford, Piero Gamba and Christian Badea.

His professional career as a composer began in 1980 with the premiere of 'Chéri' an hour-long ballet commissioned by Peter Darrell for The Scottish Ballet, and given at that year's Edinburgh Festival, and frequently revived, with a new production by The Hong Kong Ballet in 1989. To date there have been six more ballet commissions, including two for CAPAB Ballet – 'The Return of the Soldier' (1982) and 'Abelard and Heloise' (1985), both choreographed by Veronica Paeper, and a full-evening 'Macbeth' (1991) for Ballet de Santiago in Chile, choreographed by Andre Prokovsky. David had recently collaborated with the Royal Ballet choreographer Vanessa Fenton on two smaller works mounted in Cambridge in 2009.