David Chesky is an American musician and composer whose musical interests range from classical to jazz, Latin and hip-hop. He writes and produces his own music and that of many other artists on his Chesky Records label. He was nominated for three Grammy Awards and he won Independent Music Awards for Best Contemporary Classical Album in 2013 for 'Rap Symphony' and in 2015 for 'String Theory'. He was nominated again in 2016 for 'Venetian Concertos' and also runs an Internet music outlet called HDTracks, which offers CD-quality music files.
Born in Florida, he took piano lessons as a child and developed a taste for classical music, big band jazz and the Latin rhythms he grew up with in Miami. He moved in his late teens to New York to study and later formed the David Chesky Big Band, which played in major jazz clubs and at festivals in Newport and Monterey. In 1980, he released a jazz funk album titled 'Rush Hour' but he spent most of the 1980s writing music for television shows and commercials. In 1989, he established Chesky Records and released another jazz funk album titled 'Club de Sol'.
Brazilian guitarist Romero Lubambo joined him on 'The New York Chorinhos' in 1990 and 'The Tangos and Dances' in '92 and Chesky has produced several albums since that range from 'Three Psalms for String Orchestra' (1997) to 'The Agnostic' (2000), 'The Body Acoustic' (2004) and 'Urban Concertos' (2007). He has written ballets including 'Hope' (2009) for the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater', comic operas including 'The Pig, the Farmer and the Artist' (2010) and music for children such as 'The Mice War' (2011). He spent 2010-11 as composer in residence with the National Symphony of Taiwan and in 2012 he released the piano album 'The New York Rags', which critics labeled 'urban orchestral' music for its blend of techniques. That was reflected, too, in 'Jazz in the New Harmonic' which reached number 47 on the Billboard Jazz Albums Chart in 2013.
Based in New York, he still performs regularly with dates including a performance of 'Jazz in the New Harmonic' at the Lincoln Center. An album titled 'Piano Concertos No. 2 & 3' was announced for 2017.
