Faculty

Profile

Hudson Valley-based pianist/composer David Lopato has performed as a leader and sideman throughout the world. As a composer he has received multiple grants from the N.E.A., New York Foundation for the Arts, Meet the Composer, and the Beards Fund, as well as a Fulbright Fellowship to study Javanese Gamelan in Surakarta, Indonesia, where he lived for a year. His music runs the gamut from traditional and avant-garde jazz to world music influenced by South Asian, African and Brazilian musics, as well as poetry collaborations and monologues. Lopato has toured his own compositions in configurations ranging from solo piano to 10-piece ensembles, having performed with Dave Liebman, Dewey Redman, Joe Lovano, Ray Anderson, Wadada Leo Smith, Jane Ira Bloom, Steve Gorn among others. His recent recording, Gendhing for a Spirit Rising (Global Coolant-02), a Gamelan-influenced work for large ensemble, was hailed by Downbeat Magazine as one of the “Best Albums of 2017”…“unlike anything you are likely to hear this year (or any year).” His new release, Cooler and Hotter (Global Coolant-05) is scheduled for release early 2027. Lopato has been a member of the jazz faculty at The New School since 1991.

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