Composer who has worked with Coldplay, Beyonce, Taylor Swift to visit ANU
Three-time Grammy nominated pianist, cellist and composer Dave Eggar. Photo: Jamie Kidston, ANU.
A Grammy-nominated cellist/composer who has worked with artists from Norah Jones to Evanescence, will be sharing his knowledge with students at The Australian National University (ANU) School of Music during his visit to Canberra in October.
Three-time Grammy nominated pianist, cellist and composer Dave Eggar has performed around the world, from Carnegie Hall through to Nashville, but he is also responsible for the well-known cello opening in Coldplay's song Viva La Vida.
Mr Eggar will host a public workshop at the Gorman Arts Centre on Saturday 22 October from 1 - 5pm. He will also work with alumni and students of the ANU School of Music in the lead up to a performance at the School of Music on Wednesday 26 October.
ANU School of Music Artistic Director Professor Ken Lampl said Eggar was a 21st century performer and composer who could work across a range of music styles.
"Dave is a great example of someone who is a fantastic classical cellist. He also has tremendous skills in improvising in many styles including jazz and all different world music traditions including blue grass," Professor Lampl said.
"He's a composer, he's had some very successful compositional releases as a composer and also when he goes into the recording studio, he is often asked to make up string parts on a recording.
"So he becomes a composer-improviser because he is creating the string parts against whatever the song is."
Professor Lampl said Eggar's visit was to inspire and show students how a man who was a child prodigy in piano and cello expanded his repertoire into a variety of genres from pop to blue grass.
"The days of being purely a classical cellist or purely a jazz trumpet player or a classical singer, are over. The musical pallet that is in front of us is so broad and the expectations of what the commercial realm wants from us is musicians with a really broad skillset," Professor Lampl said.
"And that's the kind of program that we're working on here at the School of Music because it's a program that's not really anywhere else in the world."