About the Author

Described by the Washington Post as "a model of style and charm, and an irresistible performer," tenor David Gordon has forged a versatile international career as singer, teacher, lecturer, and recording artist. He has won critical acclaim as guest soloist with virtually every major North American symphony orchestra, and with other prestigious orchestras, operas, and music festivals on four continents. Hailed by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch as "one of the great interpreters of the Bach evangelist of our time," David is especially known for his vivid and stylish performance of Bach's music for tenor. As a Bach soloist, he has been featured in hundreds of concerts throughout North America, Europe, and Japan with conductors including Robert Shaw, Helmuth Rilling, Bruno Weil, Christopher Hogwood, David Zinman, Greg Funfgeld, Simon Preston, Blanche Honegger Moyse, Richard Westenburg, and Peter Schreier. On the international operatic stage, David has portrayed 60 principal roles with the San Francisco Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Metropolitan Opera, Houston Grand Opera, Washington National Opera (Kennedy Center), Hamburg Staatsoper, and other stages worldwide. His operatic repertoire includes Monteverdi, Handel, Haydn, Mozart, Rossini, Donizetti, Smetana, Wagner, Mussorgsky, Leoncavallo, Verdi, Puccini, Richard Strauss, Stravinsky, and several world premieres. A prolific recording artist, David appears on 15 classical CDs for RCA, BMG, Telarc, Decca, and other major labels, in eight centuries of repertoire. David is also a popular lecturer and master class presenter, and has been a voice instructor at Sonoma State University and the University of California at Berkeley. David was a central figure at the Carmel Bach Festival in California for three decades, serving first as tenor soloist and then on the artistic staff as Dramaturge, lecturer, and director of the Festival's vocal master class for young professionals. In 2014, David published Carmel Impresarios, a major cultural biography of the two visionary women who helped establish Carmel-by-the-Sea as an artistic and cultural hotspot in the 1920s and 1930s. The 400-page volume offers a detailed history of theater and music in one of California's most unique regions, and includes nearly 300 vintage illustrations, extensive footnotes, and a detailed appendix and index. Available from any bookseller worldwide. For more information, please visit www.luckyvalleypress.com. David can be contacted through his website: www.spiritsound.com.

Reviews

A curious and charming book filled with delights. Surely every admirer of Johann Sebastian Bach has wondered about what kind of man could produce such profound music, and this book provides us with a glimpse of daily life in Leipzig in the 18th century. Where else can you find out how Bach did laundry, or how long a goose quill pen would have lasted him? There are marvelous surprises on every page.Andrew Megill, Director of Choral Activities, University of Illinois