David Nadien

David Nadien studied at Mannes College The New School for Music. The recorded working language is English. The field of work recorded is music and violin performance. Subjects and genres recorded for the work are classical music. Employment is recorded with New York Philharmonic.

• Name — David Nadien • Birth Name — David Nadien • Born — 12 March 1926 • Birthplace — Brooklyn, New York, USA • Died — 28 May 2014 • Place of death — Manhattan, New York, USA • Instrument — Violin • Genre — Classical • Occupation — Violinist, pedagogue • Years Active — 1940-2014

David Nadien was born in Brooklyn, New York, on March 12, 1926, the son of Russian-Jewish father George Nadien and Dutch-Jewish mother Bertha Zwart. His father was a local boxer who went by the last name "Vanderbilt." He started learning violin with his father, then entered the Mannes School of Music. He also studied at the Juilliard School. His teachers included Adolfo Betti, Demetrius Constantine Dounis, Adolf Busch and Ivan Galamian. When he was 18, he was drafted into the US Army, and played with the Army Service Forces Orchestra on the recommendation of Philadelphia Orchestra principal bassoonist Sol Schoenbach, who recognized his talents. He made his first concert appearance with the New York Philharmonic at the age of 14, had his first solo recital at Town Hall a month before his 15th birthday and at the age of 20 won the Leventritt Award judged by a panel that included Arturo Toscanini. Afterwards, he worked mainly as a freelance studio musician, until in 1966 he was invited to audition and was eventually selected by Leonard Bernstein to replace the retiring John Corigliano Sr., the father of the composer John Corigliano, as concertmaster of the New York Philharmonic. Although Nadien had little experience of orchestral playing, Bernstein praised his unusually acute sight-reading skills and called him "an extraordinary violinist." He left the orchestra in 1970 and resumed more lucrative studio work in New York, where he recorded strings for artists such as Bette Midler, Billy Joel, Chaka Khan, Don McLean, Nina Simone, Sinéad O'Connor and Tony Bennett. As a violin teacher, he worked at the Mannes College of Music and taught privately. In 1986, he was a soloist with the Naumburg Orchestral Concerts, in the Naumburg Bandshell, Central Park, in the summer series. Nadien owned the "Prince of Orange, Wald, Hoffmann" violin, made by Guarneri del Gesù in about 1743, until he sold it in 1967. He is well known for his recordings of Parts 1 to 4 of the Suzuki violin method. He died of pneumonia in New York City aged 88 on May 28, 2014.