David Leisner

Biography

David Lesner, winner of the Leyenda Foundation’s 2026 Celedonio Romero Lifetime Achievement Award, is an extraordinarily versatile musician with a multi-faceted career as performing artist, composer and teacher. “Among the finest guitarists of all time,” according to American Record Guide, Leisner is a featured recording artist for the Azica label, with 10 highly acclaimed recordings. Other recordings are on the Bright Shiny Things, Naxos, Telarc and Koch labels, with a concert DVD published by Mel Bay. David Leisner’s recent seasons have taken him throughout the U.S., Canada, Mexico, Asia, Australasia and Europe.

Celebrated for expanding the guitar repertoire, David Leisner has premiered works by many important composers, including David Del Tredici, Virgil Thomson, Ned Rorem, Philip Glass, Richard Rodney Bennett, Peter Sculthorpe and Osvaldo Golijov. He was also a pioneer in the rediscovery of 19th-century guitar composers, Johann Kaspar Mertz and Wenzeslaus Matiegka. A frequent visitor to important chamber music festivals, he was also the Artistic Director of Guitar Plus, an innovative series in New York devoted to chamber music with the guitar.

His own compositions, noted for their emotional and dramatic power, are performed, recorded and published worldwide. Fanfare magazine described his music as “rich in invention and melody, emotionally direct, and beautiful.” Recent commissions include Wayfaring for guitar and orchestra for Pepe Romero, Love Dreams of the Exile for flute, guitar and string quartet, for the Avalon Quartet and Cavatina Duo, and the orchestral overture, Pranayama, for Paul Haas and the Symphony of Northwest Arkansas. An extensive discography includes the much-praised CDs, Acrobats, performed by the Cavatina Duo, and Letter to the World, an album of his vocal chamber music. His compositions are published mostly by Theodore Presser Co.

A distinguished teacher as well, Leisner is currently on the guitar faculty at the Manhattan School of Music and also taught at the New England Conservatory. His book, Playing with Ease, has been published by Oxford University Press.

SPECIALTIES:

Preventing and curing musician injuries
Focal dystonia (requires minimum of four lessons)
Music of J.S. Bach for guitar

LANGUAGES:

English