David Deveau

Pianist David Deveau has performed extensively throughout China, Japan, the United States, and Europe while maintaining parallel roles as an educator and festival director. Born in Concord, Massachusetts, in 1953, he studied under Russell Sherman, Beveridge Webster, Veronica Jochum, Richard Goode, and Gaby Casadesus before receiving a master’s degree from the Juilliard School. His New York recital debut took place at Alice Tully Hall in 1982, supported by a National Endowment for the Arts Solo Recitalist Grant.

Teaching formed a central thread of his professional life from the outset. In 1988 he joined the Music, Theatre, & Arts faculty at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology as a lecturer, later advancing to Senior Lecturer and instructing hundreds of piano and chamber-music students until his retirement in 2020; he has maintained his connection with the institution since then. He has also conducted master classes, among them sessions held in China.

Deveau’s first recording appeared in 1992 on the Centaur label under the title David Deveau Plays Liszt. As concerto soloist, chamber musician, and recitalist he has appeared across North America, Europe, and East Asia, collaborating with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse, and the Qingdao Symphony, among numerous other ensembles. His chamber-music partnerships have included appearances with the Juilliard String Quartet and the Kronos Quartet, as well as accompaniments for violinist Joseph Silverstein and clarinetist Richard Stoltzman, the latter collaboration extending to tours in Japan.

From 1995 to 2017 he served as artistic director of the Rockport Chamber Music Festival in Maine. On the Steinway & Sons label he released the album Siegfried Idyll in 2015, presenting a piano transcription of Wagner’s orchestral score, and has since issued additional recordings for the label, among them Schubert: Sonatas D. 959 & D. 960 in 2022.