David Chesky

Beginnings

At his mother's insistence, Chesky started piano lessons at the age of 5. In his teens he had less interest in rock and roll music, with its verse-chorus structure, than in classical and jazz. He liked Oscar Peterson, the Buddy Rich Big Band, George Gershwin, and the Latin music he heard while growing up in Miami. In 1974, at the age of 17, he moved to New York City to pursue a career as a musician. He studied privately with classical composer David Del Tredici and jazz pianist John Lewis.

Writing, recording, and performing

In 1978, he formed a jazz fusion group called the David Chesky Big Band, which included Michael Brecker, Randy Brecker, and Bob James, and released the album Rush Hour. During the next ten years, Chesky made a living writing music for TV movies and commercials, continuing to learn from older composers. Another jazz fusion album, Club de Sol, appeared in 1989, his first album on his own Chesky label. His next two albums, The New York Chorinhos (1990) and The Tangos and Dances (1992), were collaborations with Brazilian guitarist Romero Lubambo in which he took traditional Brazilian forms and combined them with elements of jazz and classical music.

In 1997 he created the Chesky Records Kids division to encourage children to listen to classical music. The first release was Classical Cats: A Children's Introduction to the Orchestra (1997), followed by Snowbears of Lake Louise (1998). Other works for children include the ballet The Zephyrtine (2013) and the opera The Mice War. He has written two comic operas for adults: The Pig, the Farmer, and the Artist, and Juliet & Romeo.

Chesky Records and HDtracks

In 1986 Chesky visited the classical pianist Earl Wild, a friend of an uncle, to learn more about writing music. Wild gave him an album of Rachmaninoff that had been recorded for Reader's Digest. Unimpressed with the quality of the recording, he asked Wild if he could hear the original master tape. After hearing better sound on the master, Chesky became interested in reissuing recordings. With his brother Norman he formed Chesky Records. Soon after, the label began producing its own albums, starting with Live from Studio A in New York City in 1988 featuring jazz violinist Johnny Frigo and father-son jazz guitarists Bucky Pizzarelli and John Pizzarelli.

Chesky albums are recorded live, sometimes in churches, often with custom-made equipment, and don't undergo post-recording polishing, overdubbing, and mixing. This arrangement reflects David Chesky's desire to make albums that approximate the original performance. In 2012, he began using a technique called binaural recording, or what he called binaural-plus, in an attempt to capture the spaciousness of three-dimensional live sound.

David Chesky and Norman Chesky, entered the music download business in 2008 when they opened HDtracks, an online music store that sells high-definition (HD), i.e. high-resolution, music. The Cheskys believe higher-resolution tracks sound better than typical mp3 files, which are compressed when transferred from the CD source. HDtracks sold CD-quality music files (44.1 kHz, 16-bit) before adding music with higher sample rates (88/24, 96/24, 176/24, 192/24) and other formats (AIFF, ALAC, FLAC, WAV).

Awards and honors

Chesky has won two Independent Music Awards, both for best Contemporary Classical Album: String Theory (2011) and Rap Symphony (2014). He has been nominated for two Grammy Awards, Best Engineered Album, Classical for Area 31 (2005); Best Classical Contemporary Composition for Concerto for Bassoon and Orchestra on the album Urban Concertos (2007); and one Latin Grammy Award for Best Latin Jazz Album, The Body Acoustic (2004).

He won the composer's award from the Lancaster Symphony Orchestra and was composer-in-residence for the National Symphony Orchestra of Taiwan.

Urban concertos

Symphonic and ballet music

Central Park Dances

Chamber music

Vocal music

Opera

Opera for children

Choral music

Spiritual Works

Joy and Sorrow

Piano

The Brazilian Dances

The New York Chorinhos

The Tango and Dances

The Fantasies

Neo–romantic orchestral works

Brass music

Film Works

Discography

Awards