David Gordon

David Gordon is the founder and director of the Look & Listen Festival, a non-profit series of new music concerts in New York City art galleries (www.lookandlisten.org). He is also the President of the League of Composers/ISCM. Gordon has taught on the faculty of New York University and Hofstra University, been the Executive Director of the League of Composers/ISCM, served as the Vice President of First Performance, a new music performing organization, and founded and directed the Composers Ensemble at Hofstra, a 60-member performing ensemble, which premiered seven of Gordon’s works, including Storm, a clarinet concertina, and Images, a double guitar concerto. In 2002 Gordon founded Pinnacle Prep, a premium test prep company that provides private tutoring for the SAT, subject tests, ACT, and other standardized tests as well as academic tutoring. Pinnacle Prep has over 25 employees, and services clients primarily in the tri-state area.

Born in Illinois in 1969, Gordon studied at NYU with Charles Wuorinen, Martin Boykan, Louis Karchin, and Elizabeth Hoffman. In 1996 Gordon was awarded the Leonard B. Meyer Award for most outstanding junior music student at Hofstra University, and in 1997 he was inducted into Pi Kappa Lambda, National Music Honors Society, as well as the Golden Key National Honors Society, graduating summa cum laude. At Hofstra, Gordon studied composition with Herbert Deutsch and David Lalama.

Gordon composed the music for, filmed, and edited Mitia, a 40-minute documentary on the life of Matthew Didlove, a French WWII veteran. The video was selected in 2001 for archive by the Spertus Museum in Chicago to be used for educational purposes and as a presentation to Holocaust Survivor Groups.

Gordon’s music has been performed by the Washington Square Contemporary Music Society, the New York Virtuoso Singers, the Chamber Players of the League of Composers/ISCM, the Talujon Percussion Quartet, Third Angle New Music Ensemble, the University of Maine Percussion Ensemble, and the Hofstra University Orchestra, Mixed Chorus, and Composers Ensemble. He has won recognition and awards from Waging Peace Through Singing, Meet the Composer, ASCAP, New York University, the National Alliance for Excellence, and been nominated for an American Academy of Arts and Letters award. Gordon has participated in the Oregon Bach Festival with seminars by Tan Dan and Murray Schafer, the Wellesley Composers Conference with seminars by Mario Davidovsky, the Ernest Bloch Music Festival with seminars by Joan Tower, and Society of Composers, Inc. (SCI) conferences in Maine, Michigan, and Indiana. Among Gordon’s commissioned works have been Drops, for violin and percussion, Propulsion, for viola and violoncello, and Ellen and William, two pieces for piano.