David Owen Norris, (born 1953) is a British pianist, composer, academic, and broadcaster.
Early life
Norris was born in 1953 in Long Buckby in Northamptonshire, England, later attending Daventry Grammar School. He took lessons locally from composer Trevor Hold before going on to study music at Keble College, Oxford where he was organ scholar; he is now an Honorary Fellow of the college.
Career
After leaving Oxford, he studied composition and worked at the Royal Opera House as a repetiteur. As a pianist, he has accompanied soloists such as Dame Janet Baker, Larry Adler and John Tomlinson, and his solo career has included appearances at the Proms and performances with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Detroit Symphony Orchestra.
He has also presented the Playlist Series for BBC Radio 4, and appeared in a number of television documentaries.
Academia
He is a professor at the Royal College of Music, the University of Southampton where he is head of keyboard, and a visiting tutor at the Royal Northern College of Music. He has also been Gresham Professor of Music and a professor at the Royal Academy of Music (having earlier been a student there).
Composition
Norris has enjoyed success as a composer in a wide range of musical styles. His Piano Concerto and Symphony were first performed at Dorchester Abbey by the English Music Festival, as was his oratorio Prayerbook, which has been frequently performed and studied subsequent to its premiere.
His song cycles Think Only This (settings of war poetry) and Tomorrow Nor Yesterday (settings of the poetry of John Donne) have been released on a disc entitled Fame's Great Trumpet. His operas and operettas, including Die! Sober Flirter and The Jolly Roger, have been performed on BBC Radio and around the UK and Europe, as have several pastiches of Mozart.
Honours
In 1991, Norris received the prestigious Gilmore Artist Award.
Recordings
(* = Premiere recordings)
Piano concertos
Constant Lambert, Rio Grande (Gilmore Festival Records) Yoshimi Takeda KSO 1996
Constant Lambert, Piano Concerto (ASV CD WHL 2122) Barry Wordsworth BBCCO* 1999
The World's First Piano Concertos [on Square Piano] (Avie AV0014) Sonnerie 2003
Edward Elgar, Piano Concerto realised Walker (Dutton CDLX 7148) David Lloyd-Jones BBCCO* 2005 Joseph Horovitz, Jazz Concerto (Dutton CDLX 7188) Horovitz Royal Ballet Sinfonia 2007 Richard Arnell, Piano Concerto (Dutton CDLX 7184) Martin Yates RSNO* 2007 Montague Phillips, Piano Concertos in F# minor and in E (Dutton CDLX 7206)*Gavin Sutherland BBCCO 2008 Victor Hely-Hutchinson, Jazz Concerto 'The Young Idea: cum grano salis’ (Dutton CDLX 7206)* 2008
Solo piano
Edward Elgar/Sigfrid Karg-Elert, First Symphony (AVM AVZ-3024)* 1990
Elgar, Sketches for Third Symphony (NMC D052)* 1998
Peter Maxwell Davies, Farewell to Stromness (MPR 203) 1998
Elgar, Complete Piano Music (Elgar Editions EE 002)* 2003
George Dyson, Complete Piano Music (Dutton CDLX 7137)* 2004
Elgar, Songs & Piano Music played on Elgar's 1844 Broadwood (Avie AV2129) Amanda Pitt, Mark Wilde, Peter Savidge (Two world premieres*) 2007 Audio-guide to the Cobbe Collection of Composer-related instruments at Hatchlands, playing pianos formerly belonging to J. C. Bach, Charles Dibdin, Johann Baptist Cramer, Frédéric Chopin, Sigismond Thalberg, Franz Liszt, Georges Bizet, Edward Elgar etc. 2008 Elgar/Karg-Elert/Norris, Symphonic Study Falstaff, Pomp & Circumstance (Elgar Editions EECD009)* 2009 Giles Easterbrook, The Moon Underwater: Chamber music and piano solo (Prima Facie PFCD002)* 2010 Roger Quilter, Complete Piano Music (EMR CD02)* 2011 Felix Mendelssohn, Complete Songs Without Words (not yet released)