| David Finko (1936-) | |
| View David Finko music in our shop | |
| Title (click title for further info) | Instrumentation |
| The Harp of King David | Solo Harp |
| Concerto for Harp and Orchestra (harp part) | Harp |
| Concerto for Harp and Orchestra (piano reduction - score) | Harp & Piano |
| Concerto for Harp and Orchestra (full score) | Harp & Orchestra |
| Can't
find what you need? We have other David Finko music in stock waiting to be added to this site. Please e-mail your requirements to us. |
|
David Finko
David Finko was born in Leningrad (St Petersburg), Soviet Union, in 1936. He graduated from the Leningrad Institute of Naval Architecture (M.S. in Submarine Design, 1959) and from the Leningrad Conservatory (M.A. in Music Composition, 1965). He worked as a Naval Architect, as an editor for a music-publishing house, as an orchestra violist, as a submarine crew member and as a free-lance composer.
Since immigrating to the United States in 1979, David Finko taught music at seven universities, including Yale University and the Universities of Pennsylvania and Texas. He became a U.S. citizen in 1986. He has written 11 operas, 16 concerti, three tone poems, three symphonies and a number of chamber compositions. His music has been performed in many countries and received several awards from, among others, the Fromm Foundation at Harvard, ASCAP, the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, and the Memorial Foundation of Jewish Culture.
On a personal level, David Finko was greatly affected by the events of his childhood: the terrors of the Stalin dictatorship and the horrors of World War II. In his psyche, he always had to deal with the dichotomy between the enormous human suffering he witnessed and the grandeur of inspiration found in the works of the great writers and composers, Russian or otherwise. On the occasion of the 1982 American premiere in Grand Rapids, Michigan, the music critic Gerald Elliott concluded perceptively: "Somber though this music may be, it is not depressing. That is chiefly because its constant shifts in mood, tonality and rhythm is too fascinating to permit the listener to dwell on external elements of the work. Even though it fails to end on a note of triumph or even promise, the total effect is that of catharsis."
Photo - David Finko with his wife, Rena (photographed in 2009) Photo and Text - from Concerto for Harp & Orchestra - Harpiana Publications