David Gompper has lived and worked professionally as a pianist, a conductor, and a composer in New York, San Diego, London, Nigeria, Michigan, Texas, and Iowa. He studied at the Royal College of Music in London with Jeremy Dale Roberts, Humphrey Searle, and pianist Phyllis Sellick. After teaching in Nigeria, he received his doctorate at the University of Michigan, taught at the University of Texas, Arlington, and since 1991 has been Professor of Composition and Director of the Center for New Music at the University of Iowa. In 2002-2003 Gompper was in Russia as a Fulbright Scholar, teaching, performing, and conducting at the Moscow Conservatory. In 2009 he received an Academy Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters in New York.
Gompper's compositions have been performed in such venues as Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, and Merkin Hall (New York), Wigmore Hall (London), Konzerthaus (Vienna), and the Bolshoi Hall (Moscow). Wolfgang David and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra recently recorded his Violin Concerto for a Naxos CD. His song cycle The Animals, based on the poetry of Marvin Bell, was released on an Albany disc last June. His Double Concerto was premiered in March 2013 and written for Wolfgang David, violin and Timothy Gill, violoncello and Principal of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, and Variations on a Sonic Imagination for soprano and string quartet on texts by Marvin Bell this past June. He is working on a Clarinet Concerto for Michael Norsworthy and BMOP (Boston Music Orchestra Project), Gil Rose, director, and a Cello Concerto for Timothy Gill, principal of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and the London Sinfonietta.
