Welcome

David Pereira is one of Australia's most accomplished cellists.

Widely experienced, he continues to evolve as a player, teacher, composer and writer.

His playing aims for perfect listening and emotional responsiveness, uncompromised by thought or technical limitation.  

Next performance

CIMF - The Great South Land

Peter Sculthorpe’s oratorio celebrating Quiros and the naming of Australia. 

Saturday 11th May 2013, 8:00 pm

Albert Hall
Commonwealth Avenue
Yarralumla

Quiros: Andrew Goodwin TENOR, Mendana: Alexander Knight BASS, Dona Ysabel: Christina Wilson MEZZO SOPRANO, Dona Ana: Greta Bradman SOPRANO

ANU School of Music Chamber Choir, Oriana Chorale, Canberra Choral Society (Bengt-Olov Palmqvist choral director), Canberra Festival Orchestra with the ANU School of Music Faculty & Students including DRUMatiX.

Bookings

Discounted Bikram Yoga classes for students!

Thanks to the generosity of Bikram Yoga Canberra, students of David Pereira can attend classes for the reduced fee of $10 per session. For more information contact David. 

About Bikram Yoga (from the Bikram Yoga Canberra website):

'Bikram's Therapeutic Hatha / Raja Yoga is a demanding series of 26 postures and two breathing exercises, suitable for all ages and levels of ability. It combines skills of concentration, patience, determination and self-control which in turn will increase mental clarity and reduce stress.

Each posture stretches, strengthens and prepares specific muscles, ligaments and joints for the next posture.

Bikram Yoga is practiced in a room heated to 38.5 degrees celsius to warm your muscles, thus reducing the risk of injury. It will allow a deeper workout and cleanse the body by flushing toxins.'

For more information about Bikram Yoga, visit Bikram Yoga Canberra.

David's composition 'Mt Ainslie Rising'
featured in Limelight Magazine,  May 2013

Extract, p25:

It may not be Mount Everest, but Canberra local and cellist David Pereira finds composing a rewarding challenge.

Feeling at one with nature is among the most beautiful of experiences - one I've had countless times in Canberra. It's a feeling that, for me, is akin to playing music I myself have composed, becoming creator and interpreter in the same moment.

... Part of the inspiration behind the piece was Mount Ainslie's mythological role in the creation of the city. It was a crucially important landmass in the Griffin plans for Canberra as a key point in their geometrical designs - and it continues to function as a protective presence that oversees the city's evolution.

...I love to bring my own new compositions into my practice as a performing musician. I am best known as a cellist but composition has been a constant companion of late. It's hard to describe the excitement that comes from hearing one's carefully assembled sounds for the first time - all the more poignant if I am performing my own music. For me as both composer and cellist, it's a peak musical experience.

Read full article here (PDF, 2.5MB)

The Cello Tragics

The Cello Tragics is a collective of cellists under David's artistic direction. It draws from the large and varied repertoire that has accumulated at a rapid rate especially since the middle of the 20th Century. The Tragics play with love of cello and rare enthusiasm. 

Booking inquiries

New CD release - Blue Silence

From the Tall Poppies website:

This is the first disc of its kind to be released in Australia - an overview of important works written for cello and piano, spanning a period of 108 years. The earliest work is the Grainger Scandinavian Suite, a tour de force for both performers and a work that deserves a place in the concert hall. Other heritage masterpieces include Ian Farr’s Sonata, a work which repays the time spent to becoming acquainted with it, and neglected since its initial performances, and Don Banks’ seminal Three Studies.

The latest work on the CD is one of several of Martin Wesley-Smith’s Papuan works: Morning Star Lament, which requires the cellist to sing. Elena Kats-Chernin’s Blue Silence, Alicia Grant’s Night Spell and Ian Munro’s Lucy Sleeps all cast a gentle spell, which is totally dispelled by Hindson’s racy Jungle Fever.  

David Pereira teams up with Timothy Young (pianist at the Australian National Academy of Music) to present these works.  

More information

Review of Blue Silence (Vincent Plush, The Australian)

Across his 30-year career, David Pereira has commissioned, performed and recorded more cello music than perhaps any other Australian cellist: from the solo suites of Bach to Rautavaara and the Russian Romantics, to the ever-expanding Sculthorpe repertoire and dozens of works by other Australians. In this, his 13th CD of solo cello music on Tall Poppies, Pereira and Timothy Young, his extraordinary versatile accompanist, including several pieces virtually forgotten.

At the top of that list is Ian Farr’s 1969 Sonata, its 10 minutes containing some of the most gritty moments in Australian music. At the start of the 20th century, the five dances of Grainger’s La Scandinavie contain moments that have defied generations of first-class cellists, but here they are tossed off ravishingly.

In between are Don Bank’s Three Studies, classics of mid-century modernism. There is repose and lyricism in the softer textures of music by Elena Kats-Chernin and Alicia Grant, a lullaby by Ian Munro and bittersweet barbs in Martin Wesley-Smith’s plea for self-determination in West Papua. In Morning Star Lament, Pereira sings the affecting melody of what is the unofficial anthem of that province. Finally, Matthew Hindson’s jaunty Jungle Fever breaks into an exhausting disco-club workout.

Audio quality is crisp and bright, the kaleidoscopic range of texture elegantly captured throughout. With his producer Belinda Webster, Pereira continues to unearth Australian works for his instrument, pointing to an extraordinary wealth of repertoire, barely known even to other cellists.

Vincent Plush, The Australian, November 17-18, 2012.

Accelerated learning modules

David now offers a series of accelerated and intensive learning modules suitable for:

• Thorough problem diagnosis and correction.
• Generous overview of technical or musical foundations.
• Detailed coaching of repertoire. 
  
• Chamber ensemble coaching.
• Pedagogical support and guidance for evolving teacher colleagues.

More information

Listen to Black Mountain Views

This work was composed in collaboration with artist Micky Allan for the exhibition Collaborations: Artists and Musicians, curated by Merryn Gates. The work is in four movements: Early, Sun, Storm and Late, and is listed in the Australian Music Examinations Board syllabus at A. Mus. A. level. Approximate duration: 13'.

Russell Smith, Artists & Musicians: Collaborations, Muse, May 2003:

Micky Allan (painter) and David Pereira (cellist) improvised their collaboration, Black Mountain Quartet over a few intense hours in the gallery, structuring their compositions around four different times of the day with key words ('tender' and 'stormy') to set the mood. Pereira produced a four-movement solo cello piece, and Allan a sequence of four dynamic and moody landscapes with swift brushstrokes of pure colour that occasionally spilt across the walls of the gallery. Pereira performed his composition in the gallery on April 13.  

Download Black Mountain Views I: Early (MP3, 3.7MB)

Download Black Mountain Views II: Sun (MP3, 4.24MB)

Download Black Mountain Views III: Storm (MP3, 2.61MB)

Download score extract

Order score

Listen to The Swan

The Swan by Camille Saint-Saëns, performed by David Pereira (cello) and Anna Johnstone (piano).

Photographs:  

1. David Pereira, Tyalgum Music Festival 2012.
2. Arts in the Valley.
3. The Cello Tragics, Kangaroo Valley 2012. Photograph by Belinda Webster.
4. David Pereira and Timothy Young. Photograph by Belinda Webster.
5. David Pereira & Micky Allan creating 'Black Mountain Views'. Photograph by Merryn Gates.
6. 'Black Mountain Views' by Micky Allan. Photograph by Merryn Gates.