David Abbott

David Abbott has been Professor of Piano at Albion College since 2005.  Previously he lived for ten years in Switzerland where he was frequently heard both as soloist and collaborative artist through Switzerland, Germany and on tours in Australia as a member of the Swiss Chamber Soloists.  His recording with that ensemble on the Swiss Claves label of Schumann’s piano quartet and quintet won the coveted Prix d’or prize for that year’s outstanding chamber music recording.

Dr. Abbott has dedicated a great deal of his career as mentor and teacher, serving on the faculties of the Zürich and Schaffausen Conservatories of Music (Switzerland), and earlier at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.  In 2010, he was asked to serve on the faculty of the prestigious Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University as a sabbatical replacement for Edmund Battersby.  He has also directed summer courses in both piano and chamber music in Europe as well as in the United States for over 25 years.  In 2003, he founded the Con Brio Music Academy at the Hindemith Music Center in Blonay, Switzerland where he works with students across Europe and from the United States in piano and chamber music.

In 2011, Dr. Abbott was invited to teach and perform in the Republic of China (Taiwan) and also appeared in recitals with his wife Lia Jensen-Abbott in France and Switzerland.  He was awarded a Bronze medal and two special prizes at the 1980 International Music Competition in Geneva.  A graduate of the Eastman and Juilliard Schools of Music, Dr. Abbott remains active in historically informed performance practice as a result of work with renowned fortepianist Malcolm Bilson.  He recently completed a two-CD recording project of solo and chamber music by 20^th-century composer Dmitri Shostakovitch.