David Louie

Hailed as a “pianistic sensation” (Rhein-Zeitung, Germany), David Louie ranks among the foremost Canadian musicians, a distinguished soloist on piano and harpsichord. His playing has been described as “far from ordinary . . . enormous pianistic tonal variety for purely musical ends and the kind of animal magnetism only a few artists in each generation generate” (Ottawa Citizen). He is a laureate of the CBC Radio Competition and the prestigious international competitions at Santander and Sydney.

Among the few keyboard artists to traverse traditional boundaries between modern and period performance, David Louie plays historical instruments and writes historically-informed arrangements. His extensive repertoire includes the principal keyboard works of Johann Sebastian Bach, and he has presented recitals of the complete Well-Tempered Clavier, Books I & II, Musical Offering, and Goldberg Variations on harpsichord. His arrangements include solo keyboard versions of Bach’s Violin Sonatas & Partitas and Rameau’s Pièces de clavecin en concerts. With violinist Benjamin Bowman, Louie premiered his critically-acclaimed completion of Mendelssohn’s unfinished Violin Sonata in D minor at Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw and at London’s Wigmore Hall.

David Louie made his New York debut under the auspices of the city’s venerable Peoples’ Symphony Concerts. He has appeared as soloist with the Vancouver Symphony, National Arts Centre Orchestra of Canada, Gulbenkian Chamber Orchestra of Lisbon, and Royal Philharmonic Orchestra of London. A respected chamber musician, he has collaborated with the Takacs Quartet, the Smithsonian Chamber Players, and the ARC Ensemble (Artists of the Royal Conservatory) with whom he has toured widely, performing at the Kennedy Center in Washington and at major venues in Rome, Warsaw, Budapest, Bucharest, Stockholm and Tel Aviv. His recordings with the ARC Ensemble include Grammy-nominated releases on Sony BMG Masterworks. The Ensemble’s latest disc on the Chandos label, Chamber Works of Szymon Laks (nominated for a 2018 JUNO Award), includes Mr. Louie’s world-premiere recording of the exiled Polish composer’s Sonatine.

Born in Prince George, British Columbia, David Louie began music studies at the age of five. He is a graduate of The Royal Conservatory in Toronto and the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, and his principal teachers include John Perry, Boris Zarankin, Leon Fleisher and Charlotte Nediger. David Louie is currently on the faculty at The Glenn Gould School of The Royal Conservatory where he is Piano Department Coordinator. He has given masterclasses in the United Kingdom, Poland, Italy, Israel, and Australia.