David Bernard & Park Avenue Chamber Symphony - Copland, Ravel & Stravinsky: Symphonic Dances (2019) [Hi-Res]

A fixture of the orchestral scene in the New York City area, conductor David Bernard has also worked with ensembles in more than 20 countries on four continents. He is noted for his InsideOut orchestral concert concept, which involves seating the audience on-stage with the musicians.

Bernard was born in 1964. He studied both conducting and clarinet, and has been active professionally in both capacities. Bernard has conducted widely around New York, leading the South Shore Symphony, the Putnam Symphony, the New York Symphonic Arts Ensemble, the Litha Symphony, the Manhattan School of Music Orchestra, the Island Symphony Orchestra, and the Greater Newburgh Symphony, and the Brooklyn Symphony as a guest conductor. He serves as music director of the Massapequa Philharmonic and the Park Avenue Chamber Symphony; it is with the latter that he has developed the InsideOut concept. "The question is -- how do you turn classical music performance into more of an experience?" he has asked, taking interactive theater as an inspiration. He has also promoted the development of new audiences for classical music through presentations of music in schools and through multimedia performances. Bernard has championed contemporary music, performing world premieres of pieces by Jake Runestad, Ted Rosenthal, John Mackey, Chris Caswell, and Bruce Adolphe. Among his collaborators in concert has been actress Whoopi Goldberg.

Stravinsky: The Rite of Spring; The Firebird Suite As of 2018 he had conducted the Park Avenue Chamber Orchestra in seven recordings on the Recursive label; their recording of Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring, a work he conducts from memory, appeared that year. Unlike his concert programs, Bernard's recordings have centered primarily on traditional repertory. Unusually for a leading conductor, Bernard has been active as a music editor. He participated in the development of new performing editions of The Rite of Spring and of Stravinsky's Firebird Suite (1919 version) for the Kalmus publishing house, and he has created and performed new editions of Schumann's Symphony No. 2 in C major, Op. 61, and Mozart's Clarinet Concerto in A major, K. 622. -- James Manheim