Renowned across the globe for his mastery of the guitar both in performance and pedagogy, David Leisner has earned equal recognition as a composer who regularly fulfills commissions for distinguished colleagues. His expanding discography encompasses solo recitals, collaborative chamber projects, and original compositions. The year 2024 brought the release of his solo album Charms to Soothe: 19th Century Music for Guitar.
Born December 22, 1953, in Los Angeles, Leisner started on violin before discovering the guitar during adolescence and immersing himself in flamenco and classical repertoires. Largely self-taught in both composition and guitar, he pursued a music degree at Wesleyan University while undertaking brief studies with guitarists John Duarte, David Starobin, and Angelo Gilardino, as well as composers Virgil Thomson, Richard Winslow, and David Del Tredici. He secured awards at the Toronto International Guitar Competition in 1975 and the Geneva International Guitar Competition in 1981. In 1980 he joined the faculty of the New England Conservatory, where he remained until 2003. During those years he produced several works, among them Dances in the Madhouse for violin and guitar (1982), the song cycle Simple Songs (1982) setting Emily Dickinson poems, and Three Moons for cello and guitar (1984). As a composer he received grants from the Aaron Copland Fund for Music, the American Music Center, Meet the Composer, and additional sources.
In 1984 Leisner observed a decline in dexterity during the final two months of the concert season; practice revealed progressively weaker responsiveness in his hand. The next season, while performing the Villa-Lobos Etudes in Oregon, he found the two outer fingers of his right hand unresponsive. He completed the program by inventing new right-hand fingerings on the spot, later describing the episode as a “harrowing experience.” Subsequent cancellations led to a complete withdrawal from the stage. Eventually the two outer fingers curled uselessly into his palm during playing. Focal dystonia became the prevailing diagnosis. Over the next five years Leisner consulted specialists in both Western and Eastern medicine, exploring chiropractic, Shiatsu, myotherapy, and the deep muscle massage known as Hoshino; none proved effective, and he has stated that Hoshino actually worsened the condition.
After abandoning external therapies, Leisner turned inward, cultivating mental clarity and a heightened awareness of the mind-body connection. He observed that his right hand rotated clockwise, palm upward, beyond normal range. Deliberately reversing that rotation produced gradual improvement in the affected fingers. Increasingly confident with the three functioning digits, he began arranging repertoire to bypass the disabled pair and resumed public recitals in 1991. To spare the usable fingers from overload, he shifted emphasis to larger forearm muscles, executing strokes by lifting the arm’s weight toward the face and allowing it to descend for downward thumb strokes. Although observers noted excessive hand motion, the approach removed tension from wrist and hand, yielded greater volume and tonal richness, and ultimately restored mobility to the impaired fingers; full recovery occurred by 1996. Leisner continues to urge musicians to ground technique in large muscle groups, an outlook that produced his 2018 book Playing with Ease: A Healthy Approach to Guitar Technique.
In 1998 Leisner signed with Azica Records, remaining on the label well into the twenty-first century. Releases include Villa-Lobos: Complete Guitar Works (2000), David Leisner: Self-Portrait (2006), and Arpeggione (2016) with cellist Zuill Bailey. From 2008 to 2019 he served as artistic director of the New York series Guitar Plus. In 2022 he accompanied baritone Michael Kelly on a Bright Shiny Things recording of his own arrangement of Schubert’s Die schöne Müllerin. He has sustained a parallel career as a composer, frequently writing on commission, among recent works As Wind in Shells for soprano, violin, and guitar (2023), commissioned by guitarist Robert Nathanson. Also in 2024 he returned to Azica Records with Charms to Soothe, devoted to nineteenth-century guitar repertoire. Since 1993 he has taught guitar at the Manhattan School of Music.
