Daniell Revenaugh is an American classical pianist and conductor. Born in Louisville, Kentucky, he made his debut at the age of 14 playing Beethoven's First Piano Concerto with the Louisville Orchestra.

He studied with Ferruccio Busoni

Ferruccio Busoni

Ferruccio Busoni was an Italian composer, pianist, editor, writer, piano and composition teacher, and conductor.-Biography:...

's pupil Egon Petri

Egon Petri

Egon Petri was a classical pianist.-Biography:Petri's family was Dutch and he was born a Dutch citizen, but he was born in Hanover in Germany and was brought up in Dresden. His father was a professional violinist who taught his son that instrument. Petri played in the Dresden Court Orchestra and...

 from 1951 until Petri's death in 1962. In 1959 he graduated from Florida State University

Florida State University

The Florida State University is a space-grant and sea-grant public university located in Tallahassee, Florida, United States. It is a comprehensive doctoral research university with medical programs and significant research activity as determined by the Carnegie Foundation...

, where he studied with Ernst von Dohnanyi and Lewis Pankaskie. He later founded the Busoni Society, and has amassed a large and important collection of Busoni and Petri materials.

In 1973 Revenaugh became the first General Director of the Institute For Advanced Music Study in Crans-Montana, Switzerland; a full scholarship international programme with faculty that included Zino Francescatti

Zino Francescatti

René-Charles "Zino" Francescatti was a French virtuoso violinist.Zino Francescatti was born in Marseilles, to a musical family. Both parents were violinists. His father, who also played the cello, had studied with Camillo Sivori. Zino studied violin from age three and was quickly recognized as a...

, Gregor Piatigorsky

Gregor Piatigorsky

Gregor Piatigorsky was a Russian-born American cellist.-Early life:...

, Ib Lanzky-Otto and Rudolf Kempe

Rudolf Kempe

Rudolf Kempe was a German conductor.- Biography :Kempe was born in Dresden, where from the age of fourteen he studied at the Dresden State Opera School. He played oboe in the opera orchestra of Dortmund and then in the Leipzig Gewandhaus orchestra, from 1929...

.

Daniell Revenaugh has invented and patented a Lower Lid for the grand piano which projects the sound more effectively. It has been used in concert by pianists such as Martha Argerich

Martha Argerich

Martha Argerich is an Argentine pianist.-Early life:Argerich was born in Buenos Aires and started playing the piano at age three...

, Peter Serkin

Peter Serkin

-Biography:He was born in New York City and is the son of pianist Rudolf Serkin, and grandson of the influential violinist Adolf Busch, whose daughter Irene had married Rudolf Serkin...

, André Watts

André Watts

André Watts is a classical pianist and professor at the Jacobs School of Music of Indiana University.-Life and early performances:...

, Radu Lupu

Radu Lupu

Radu Lupu is a Romanian concert pianist. He has won a number of the most prestigious awards in classical piano, including first prizes in the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition and the Leeds International Pianoforte Competition....

 and Alexandre Toradze. He has also patented a muting device for grand pianos which protects downstairs neighbors.

Revenaugh created the Electric Symphony Orchestra (see Time; Nov. 13, 1972). In the 1980s he created the Classical Cabaret, which performed solo and chamber works to the accompaniment of jugglers, paddle balls, yo-yos, Indian clubs and fire eaters. He is currently involved in a project to convert opera composer Carlisle Floyd

Carlisle Floyd

Carlisle Floyd is an American opera composer. The son of a Methodist minister, he based many of his works on themes from the South...

's former home in Tallahassee, Florida into an artist's residence (more on Floyd below).

He has four children and three grandchildren, and has homes in Berkeley, California; Tallahassee, Florida and Lausanne, Switzerland. Among his many pianos, Revenaugh is the owner of the Erard upon which Franz Liszt

Franz Liszt

Franz Liszt ; ), was a 19th-century Hungarian composer, pianist, conductor, and teacher.Liszt became renowned in Europe during the nineteenth century for his virtuosic skill as a pianist. He was said by his contemporaries to have been the most technically advanced pianist of his age...

 played the first solo piano recital in 1848. The Erard is autographed by Liszt himself.

Recordings

In 1967 Revenaugh conducted the Busoni Piano Concerto

Piano Concerto (Busoni)

The Piano Concerto in C major, Op. 39 , by Ferruccio Busoni, is one of the largest works ever written in this particular genre. The concerto is in five movements, the last of which also utilizes a male chorus singing words from the final scene of the verse drama Aladdin by Adam Oehlenschläger.The...

, with John Ogdon

John Ogdon

John Andrew Howard Ogdon was an English pianist and composer.-Biography:Ogdon was born in Mansfield Woodhouse, Nottinghamshire, and attended Manchester Grammar School, before studying at the Royal Northern College of Music between 1953 and 1957, where his fellow students under Richard Hall...

, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra

Royal Philharmonic Orchestra

The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra is a British orchestra based in London. It tours widely, and is sometimes referred to as "Britain's national orchestra"...

, and the John Alldis Choir

John Alldis

John Alldis was an English chorus-master and conductor.After his education at Felsted, Alldis studied as a choral scholar under Boris Ord at King's College, Cambridge, from 1949 to 1952....

 at Abbey Road studios for EMI. This world premiere recording won the Deutscher Schallplatten Preis, the Montreux Award, a Grammy nomination, and has remained in the EMI catalogue for 43 years. It was coupled with Busoni's Two Studies for Doktor Faust

Doktor Faust

Doktor Faust is an opera by Ferruccio Busoni with a German libretto by the composer himself, based on the myth of Faust. Busoni worked on the opera, which he intended as his masterpiece, between 1916 and 1924, but it was still incomplete at the time of his death. His pupil Philipp Jarnach finished it...

: Sarabande and Cortege, Op. 51.

Revenaugh's recordings as a pianist:

• the complete music for 2 pianos by Busoni, with Lawrence Leighton Smith
  Lawrence Leighton Smith
  Lawrence Leighton Smith, a conductor and pianist, was born April 8, 1936 in Portland, Oregon.He studied piano with Ariel Rubstein in Portland and Leonard Shure in New York. He earned bachelor's degrees from Portland State University in 1956 and Mannes College of Music in 1959...
  
   (EMI).

• the first recording of the Piano Sonata by Carlisle Floyd
  Carlisle Floyd
  Carlisle Floyd is an American opera composer. The son of a Methodist minister, he based many of his works on themes from the South...
  
  . It was composed in the 1950s for Rudolf Firkušný
  Rudolf Firkusny
  - Life :Born in Moravian Napajedla, Firkušný started his musical studies with the composers Leoš Janáček and Josef Suk, and the pianist Vilém Kurz. Later he studied with Alfred Cortot and Artur Schnabel. He began performing on the continent of Europe in the 1920s, and made his debuts in London in...
  
  , who played it at a Carnegie Hall
  Carnegie Hall
  Carnegie Hall is a concert venue in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, United States, located at 881 Seventh Avenue, occupying the east stretch of Seventh Avenue between West 56th Street and West 57th Street, two blocks south of Central Park....
  
  recital. It then languished until Revenaugh recorded it in 2009. Floyd coached Revenaugh on the Sonata for an hour and then he performed it - all captured on the DVD available at Arkiv Musik and CD Baby

• an EMI disc of piano solos containing the most popular works by thirteen different famous composers.

External links

• BUSONI AT CARNEGIE HALL Daniell Revenaugh, Busoni scholar and performer, is interviewed by John Whiting, with excerpts from interviews with Philipp Jarnach and Benvenuto Busoni. 8 December 1965