Masterclass with Professor David Tanenbaum, San Francisco Conservatory of Music
March 1, 2025, 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.
Evergreen Valley High School, 3300 Quimby Road, San Jose
Free registration required for the performer slots. Admission to audit the class is free. Please note that a parent or guardian must accompany performers under the age of 18 at all times, including during warm-up and the class itself.
Directions
The South Bay Guitar Society is pleased to present a masterclass with David Tanenbaum, chair of the guitar department at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. Players will perform individually and receive feedback from Professor Tanenbaum in this educational event.
Recognized internationally as an outstanding performer and recording artist, a charismatic educator, and a transcriber and editor of both taste and intelligence, David Tanenbaum is one of the most admired classical guitarists of his generation. He has performed throughout the United States, Canada, Mexico, Europe, Australia, the former Soviet Union and Asia, and in 1988 he became the first American guitarist to be invited to perform in China by the Chinese government. He has been soloist with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony, Minnesota Orchestra, London Sinfonietta, the Oakland Symphony, and Vienna’s ORF orchestra, with such eminent conductors as Esa-Pekka Salonen, Kent Nagano, and John Adams.
Tanenbaum has been a featured soloist at many international festivals, including those of Bath, Luzern, Frankfurt, Barcelona, and Vienna as well as numerous guitar festivals. In 1989, as president of the Second American Classical Guitar Congress, he commissioned five new works, including Rosewood by Henry Brant for a large guitar orchestra. He has subsequently conducted Rosewood more than a dozen times on four continents.
While his repertoire encompasses diverse styles, Tanenbaum is recognized as one of today’s most eloquent proponents of new guitar repertoire. Among the many works written for him is Hans Werner Henze’s guitar concerto An Eine Aolsharfe, which he premiered throughout Europe and recorded with the composer conducting, Terry Riley’s first guitar piece, Ascención, four works by 1998 Pulitzer Prize winner Aaron Jay Kernis, two pieces by Roberto Sierra, and a suite by Lou Harrison. He is currently working with Terry Riley on a series of 24 guitar pieces. He has toured extensively with Steve Reich and Musicians, was invited to Japan in 1991 by Toru Takemitsu, and has had a long association with the Ensemble Modern.
As a chamber musician he has collaborated with, among others, the Kronos, Shanghai, Alexander, and Chester string quartets, dancer Tandy Beal, and guitarist Manuel Barrueco. He is currently a member of the Pacific Guitar Ensemble and the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players.
Tanenbaum’s three dozen recordings reflect his broad repertoire interests can be found on New Albion, EMI, Nonesuch, Ars Musici, Rhino, GSP, Albany, Audiofon, Bayer, Acoustic Music Records, Bridge, Stradivarius, and others. His 2002 recording as soloist with Esa-Pekka Salonen and the Los Angeles Philharmonic in John Adams's Naïve and Sentimental Music was nominated for a Grammy for Best New Composition. His recording of the complete guitar works of Sofia Gubaidulina will come out on Naxos in June 2015.
He has produced many editions of guitar music, including the David Tanenbaum Concert Series for Guitar Solo Publications. He has also written a series of three books, The Essential Studies, which analyze the etudes of Sor, Carcassi and Brouwer and complement his recordings of those works on GSP, and his chapter on the Revival of the Classical Guitar in the 20th Century appears in the Cambridge Companion to the Guitar.
Tanenbaum is currently chair of the guitar department at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, where he received the 1995 Outstanding Professor Award, and he has been Artist-In-Residence at the Manhattan School of Music. He is in demand for master classes worldwide. Mr. Tanenbaum’s students have won many international competitions, and his former students hold teaching positions internationally.
Tanenbaum studied with Rolando Valdez-Blain, Aaron Shearer and Michael Lorimer, attending the San Francisco Conservatory and Peabody Conservatory. Further studies included work with pianist Jeanne Stark-Iochmans and harpsichordist Laurette Goldberg. He participated in the 1981 New York master class with Andrés Segovia.
