'''David Soyer''' (February 24, 1923{{spaced ndash}}February 25, 2010) was an American cellist.
{{Infobox person | name = David Soyer | birth_date = {{Birth date|1923|2|24}} | birth_place = Philadelphia, U.S. | death_date = {{Death date and age|2010|2|25|1923|2|24}} | death_place = New York City, U.S. | alma_mater = Binghamton University | occupation = cellist }}
He was born in Philadelphia and began playing the piano at the age of nine. At 11, he started the cello. One of his first teachers was Diran Alexanian. Later on he studied with Emanuel Feuermann and Pablo Casals. He debuted with the Philadelphia Orchestra under Eugene Ormandy in 1942, playing Ernest Bloch's ''Schelomo''.
Chamber music was a special love of Soyer's. He was a founding member of the Guarneri Quartet in 1964 and played with them until retiring from the quartet in 2002. As a member of the Guarneri he collaborated with many of the world's most famous classical musicians, including Leonard Rose, the Budapest String Quartet, Pinchas Zukerman, and Arthur Rubinstein. He gave the New York premieres of the Solo Cello Sonatas by Zoltán Kodály and George Crumb. With David Tudor he premiered Earle Brown's Music for Cello and Piano. Before joining the quartet he played in various venues including the Navy Band (**) during World War II and later with the NBC Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Arturo Toscanini.
Soyer was on the faculty of the Curtis Institute of Music, the Manhattan School of Music, and the Juilliard School. Many of his students, such as Ronald Thomas and Peter Wiley, have gone on to have successful performing careers.
He taught many of today's most prominent contemporary cellists and musicians. He spent many summers teaching and performing at the Marlboro Music Festival in Vermont.
He received an honorary degree from Binghamton University.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.binghamton.edu/president/previous-honorary-degrees.html |title=Binghamton University - Office of the President: Honorary Degree Recipients |access-date=2012-04-11 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130319120031/http://www2.binghamton.edu/president/previous-honorary-degrees.html |archive-date=2013-03-19 |url-status=dead }}</ref> Soyer died at his home in New York City on February 25, 2010, one day after his 87th birthday.
==References== * [https://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/27/arts/music/27soyer.html David Soyer, Cellist, Is Dead at 87], New York Times * The Art of Quartet Playing: The Guarneri String Quartet in Conversation With David Blum, Cornell University Press, 1986, {{ISBN|0-8014-9456-7}} {{reflist}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Soyer, David}} Category:Binghamton University alumni Category:1923 births Category:2010 deaths Category:Juilliard School faculty Category:American classical cellists Category:American music educators Category:Jewish classical musicians Category:Jewish American classical musicians Category:Manhattan School of Music faculty Category:Musicians from Philadelphia Category:Classical musicians from Pennsylvania Category:Guarneri Quartet members Category:20th-century American classical musicians Category:21st-century American Jews Category:20th-century American cellists
{{Cellist-stub}} {{US-classical-musician-stub}}