Dennis Parker
Cellist
Cellist Dennis Parker was born in New York City and began his cello studies at the age of six. He received his early training with Channing Robbins of the Juilliard School, and later earned degrees from Indiana University and Yale University, where he worked with Janos Starker and Aldo Parisot, respectively.
Since 1988, Parker has served as Professor of Cello and String Chamber Music at the Louisiana State University School of Music. A former member of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Parker has also served as Principal Cellist of the Porto Alegre Symphony Orchestra in Porto Alegre, Brazil. In 2003 he recorded to DVD the first complete performance of David Popper’s “High School of Cello Playing” and authored of the accompanying manual, “Popper Manifesto.”
Inspired by a variety of musical activity, Parker appears frequently as soloist, recitalist, collaborator, and guest professor at universities and festivals worldwide. He is actively involved in the expansion of the existing cello repertoire, and has transcribed many important works for his instrument: Mozart on Cello? presents Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante for Violin and Viola, K364, and Mozart’s A Major Violin Concerto, K219., , Brahms’s Viola Sonata in E Flat Major, Violin Sonata in A Major, Georges Enesco’s Viiolin Sonata No. 3 in A minor, Francis Poulenc’s Flute Sonata, to name but a few.
Recently released on YouTube is his transcription of Vivaldi’s Four Long Seasons -VIVALDI VIRALE_ Double-Masked, which is the only complete video recording/performance exclusively played on cellos.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vvaNfbtiB1M&t=638s
Parker has also released CDs with the Centaur label: Cello Matters features crossover music for cello and piano by Liduino Pitombeira, Daniel Schnyder, David Baker, and Astor Piazzolla; Uplifting Discoveries from a Generation Lost is a recording of chamber music by composers who perished in the Holocaust (Erwin Schulhoff, Gideon Klein, Viktor Ullmann and Hans Krasa). Other recent recordings include Volume 1 of Stolen Sonatas, with pianist Jennifer Hayghe, with his own transcriptions of Debussy’s Sonata for Violin, Poulenc’s Sonata for Flute, and Enesco’s Sonata No.3 for Violin, The Lone Cello, featuring solo cello works by Scott Howard Eggert (Uccello), George Crumb, Viktor Kalabis, and György Ligeti, and the complete cello works of Walter Burle Marx, his Concerto (1983), Sambatango for cello and piano, Divertimento a Tre for flute, oboe and cello, and the Casanova Fantasy Variations for Three Celli.
When not playing cello, Parker, an avid woodworker and sculptor, creates objects that extend his musical expression and complement the delicate act of performance with the risky business of maneuvering wood through various cutting and shaping devices. You can see his work at www.dennisparkerland.com, on Instagram :Dennisparkercelloetc. He lives in Baton Rouge, Louisiana with his wife, artist Jacqueline Dee Parker www.jacquelinedeeparker, and their oversized Sheherd/Lab, Leda
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