David Alexander Rahbee leads members of the UW Symphony in special free outreach program at the Nordstrom Recital Hall at Seattle's Benaroya Hall. The program includes music by Marianna Martines, Haydn, and Mozart. Artist-in-residence (and Seattle Symphony principal) David Gordon, trumpet, is featured soloist with the orchestra on Haydn's Trumpet Concerto in E-flat major.
Program
Marianna Martines: Symphony in C major
F. J. Haydn: Trumpet Concerto in E-flat major
W. A. Mozart: Symphony No.41 in C major, K.551 Jupiter
Biographies
David Alexander Rahbee is an Associate Professor at the University of Washington School of Music in Seattle, where he is Director of Orchestral Activities and Chair of Orchestral Conducting. He is Music Director and Conductor of the University of Washington Symphony Orchestra and founder of the UW Campus Philharmonia Orchestras. He is a recipient of the American-Austrian Foundation's 2003 Herbert von Karajan Fellowship for Young Conductors, the 2005 International Richard-Wagner-Verband Stipend, a fellowship the Acanthes Centre in Paris (2007), and is first prize winner in conducting from The American Prize national non-profit competitions in the performing arts for 2020. His work at UW has earned national recognition. In 2021 he was praised by The American Prize as “Consistently one of the most courageous and comprehensive [orchestral] programmers working in higher education in the U.S. today…”
Dr. Rahbee has appeared in concert with orchestras such as the Seattle Symphony, RTE National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland, Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg, Kammerphilharmonie Berlin-Brandenburg, Guernsey Symphony Orchestra, Chattanooga Symphony, National Chamber Orchestra of Armenia, Orchestre de la Francophonie, Orchesterakademie der Bochumer Symphoniker, the Dresden Hochschule orchestra, Grand Harmonie, the Boston New Music Initiative, Seattle Modern Orchestra, Orquesta Sinfónica de Loja (Ecuador), Savaria Symphony Orchestra (Hungary), Cool Opera of Norway (members of the Stavanger Symphony), Schönbrunner Schloss Orchester (Vienna), the Whatcom Symphony Orchestra, the Kennett Symphony, and the Divertimento Ensemble of Milan. His collaborations with the Seattle Symphony include assistant conductor for the performance and recording of Ives’ Fourth Symphony, and as guest conductor for their Native Lands project and the North American premiere of Páll Ragnar Pallson's Quake with faculty cellist Sæunn Thorsteinsdóttir. He has collaborated with several prominent soloists such as Sarah Chang, Jon Kimura Parker, Yekwon Sunwoo, Glenn Dicterow and Jonathan Biss. He has been a guest rehearsal conductor for numerous young orchestras, such as the New England Conservatory Symphony Orchestra, The Symphony Orchestra of the Hall-Musco Conservatory of Music at Chapman University, and the Vienna University of Technology orchestra. He has served on faculty of the Pierre Monteux School as Conducting Associate, has been resident conductor of the Atlantic Music Festival and guest conductor at the Hawaii Performing Arts Festival.
Dr. Rahbee was an assistant at the Vienna State opera from 2002-2010. As part of his fellowship and residency at the 2003 Salzburg Festival, Dr. Rahbee was assistant conductor of the International Attergau Institute Orchestra, where he worked with members of the Vienna Philharmonic. He has been selected to actively participate in masterclasses with prominent conductors such as Kurt Masur, Sir Colin Davis, Jorma Panula, Zdeněk Mácal, Peter Eötvös, Zoltán Peskó and Helmut Rilling, and counts Nikolaus Harnoncourt to be among his most influential mentors. From 1997-2001, David Rahbee was founder and conductor of the Fidelio Chamber Orchestra in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Dr. Rahbeeʼs principal conducting teachers were Charles Bruck and Michael Jinbo at the Pierre Monteux School. He holds a Bachelor of Music degree in violin and composition from Indiana University, a Master of Music degree from the New England Conservatory in orchestral conducting, and a Doctorate of Musical Arts from the University of Montreal in orchestral conducting. He has also participated in post-graduate conducting classes at the Universität für Musik und Darstellende Kunst, Vienna. His brass arrangements are published by Warwick Music, and his articles on the music of Mahler have appeared in journals of the International Gustav Mahler Gesellschaft, among others.
In addition to being awarded first prize in conducting from The American Prize for 2020, he was awarded 2nd place in 2019. He has also placed among winners for five consecutive years for The American Prize Vytautas Marijosius Memorial Award for Orchestral Programming, recognizing his programming with the UW Symphony and its affiliated ensembles for every season since he joined the faculty. The UWSO has also been a finalist in the category of orchestral performance in 2018, 2019 and 2020.
Dr. Rahbee is co-editor of Daniels’ Orchestral Music (6thedition) and Daniels’ Orchestral Music Online (DOMO), the gold standard among conductors, orchestral administrators, orchestra librarians as well as other music professionals and students researching for orchestral programming.
David Gordon, whose playing has been described as “spectacular” by The Chicago Tribune, is Principal Trumpet of the Seattle Symphony Orchestra, Seattle Opera and the Grant Park Symphony Orchestra, Chicago. Prior to his appointment in Seattle, he was Principal Trumpet of the Charleston Symphony Orchestra.
As a guest artist, he has performed, recorded and toured as Principal Trumpet of the London Symphony Orchestra and the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio-France, and has performed as Principal Trumpet of the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra. As soloist, David has appeared with the Seattle Symphony Orchestra, the Grant Park Symphony Orchestra, the Charleston Symphony Orchestra (with whom he performed as soloist every season of his tenure), the National Repertory Orchestra, and the Lake George Chamber Orchestra. In an orchestral context, he has performed with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, the Moscow Chamber Orchestra and the Savannah Symphony Orchestra, and has held the position of Principal Trumpet with the Jupiter Symphony and the Prometheus Chamber Orchestra.
Mr. Gordon has toured extensively in Europe, North America and South America, and has performed in such prestigious festivals as Tanglewood, Lucerne and Schleswig-Holstein. As a chamber musician, he has performed with Music of Remembrance, Seattle Chamber Players and as a member of the Seattle Symphony Chamber Series, among others. In addition to his performance activities, he records frequently for radio, television, and film. A committed educator, David is a faculty member at the University of Washington, and regularly presents master classes and coachings nationwide.
A native of Narragansett, RI, David Gordon was educated at Columbia University, from which he holds a degree in philosophy, and The Juilliard School. He lives in Seattle with his wife, Seattle Symphony Principal Harp Valerie Muzzolini Gordon, daughter Anaïs, and English bulldog Massimo.