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David Darling is a classically trained cellist who began his
career as an elementary and secondary school teacher and
conductor of band and orchestra. He later taught music and
served as conductor and faculty cellist at Western Kentuky
University. Then from 1969 to 1978 he played with the Paul
Winter Consort, an extrordinarily progressive band for its
time whose sound blended jazz with Brazilian, African, Indian
and other world music. Since he left the Consort he has
dedicated himself to a solo performing and recording career,
and to teaching music and improvisation.
In 1986 he co-founded
Music for People, a non-profit educational, network that
teaches and fosters improvisation as means of creative self
expression. For the past 10 years, Darling has also enriched
the lives of thousands of young people through in-school
programs in his work with Young Audiences, Inc..
Darling has collabarated on performances and recordings with dozens of
musicians, among them Bobby McFerrin, Spyro Gyra, Peter Paul
and Mary, Oregon, Jan Garbarek, Terje Rypdal, and the
innovative dance ensemble Pilololus. Among Darlings film
credits are his contributions to the movies "Until the End of
the Earth" and "Far Away, So Close" by Wim Wenders as well as
"Nouvelle Vague" and "Heat".
David Darling's 1992 CD "Cello" on
ECM features multi-layered voices of acoustic and electric
cello and combines the spirit of "Adagio" classical music with
the flaoting quality of Gregorian chant. Other ECM recordings
include the solo release "Dark Wood" and collaborations
"The Sea" with Ketil Bjornstad, Terje Rypdal, and Jon
Christiansen, and "Window Steps" with Pierre Favre.
b. 4 March 1941,
Elkhart, Indiana, USA.
Darling studied the piano and cello as well as playing the
double bass and alto saxophone in the school dance band of
which he eventually became the leader. He studied the cello
and music education at Indiana University from where he
graduated in 1965. After teaching for four years he played
with the Winter, Paul Consort throughout the 70s and then
formed the band Radiance with other Winter alumni. Getting
acquainted with ethnic music with the Consort and trying to
play it on the cello 'was mind-blowing'. He was able to develop
his particular style as he turned to the use of a solid bodied
eight-string electric cello and was able to introduce
electronic effects into his playing through the use of an
echoplex and other devices. Although he turned increasingly
to classical composition after 1978, he played with Spiro Gyra
in 1980. The following year he formed the band Gallery, and
recorded with Moore, Glen and Towner, Ralph. He later worked
in a duo with Rypdal, Terje. Darling does not see his music as
new age but as music 'that doesn't have the busyness of
progressive jazz, that has a meditative quality'.
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