David Spelman

The Great Flood, a collaboration between Bill Frisell and experimental filmmaker Bill Morrison, was based on the Mississippi River Flood of 1927 and the ensuing transformation of American society and music.

It had its premiere at the Krannert Center for the Performing Arts, and has since been performed at Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, and throughout Europe, including venues in Poland, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, France, England, Ireland, Portugal, Belgium, Germany, Austria, and Greece.

Spelman has presented a number of large-scale multimedia projects, including the world premieres of Phil Kline’s World on a String, Bill Frisell’s The Great Flood, Daniel Lanois’ Silvio, Aaron and Bryce Dessner’s The Long Count, and The Apollo Project a 30th anniversary live re-imagining of Brian Eno's Apollo: Atmospheres and Soundtracks, featuring members of Phish, Tortoise, the Brooklyn ambient ensemble Itsnotyouitsme, and filmmaker Craig Teper.

He is the cousin of Ron Balin, who co-founded the Mattachine Society of Washington, D.C., in 1961, one of the nation’s first homosexual civil rights organizations.

David Spelman (born 1966 in Washington, D.C., United States) is an American, New York-based, record producer and curator working in recordings, films and live events

Spelman was educated at the Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University and the New England Conservatory, where he was selected as one of the one-hundred most distinguished alumni, as part of the Centenary Celebration of Jordan Hall.

At the Peabody Institute he studied renaissance lute with Ronn McFarlane, and performed in the Peabody Renaissance Ensemble.

At the New England Conservatory he was a student of classical guitarists David Leisner and Robert Paul Sullivan.

Spelman is the son of Seymour J. Spelman, a labor lawyer and government attorney who ran for Congress in Montgomery County, Maryland, in 1966 as a peace candidate.

He is the brother of Judith Spelman, an R.N. and health care advocate, who has authored several legislative bills including “Cal-Care,” a universal health care proposal.

In the 1980s, Spelman trained in acoustic guitar design and construction under Jeff Trougott, the Santa Cruz-based luthier known for making custom acoustic guitars for musicians including Charlie Hunter and John Mayer.

In the early 1990s Spelman served as music director and co-producer of Third Friday Respite, a series of literary readings and classical music performances at Manhattan's Church of the Advent Hope.

The festival's first season included just three concerts at Merkin Concert Hall, but in later years expanded to include venues throughout the city, including Carnegie Hall, The World Financial Center Winter Garden, The 92nd Street Y, Joe's Pub, The Jazz Standard, Le Poisson Rogue, Flushing Town Hall, Makor, BB King Blues Club, The Monkey, Barbes, The Apple Store theater in SoHo, and various pop-up venues.

The festival attracts recognition in the international media, has built partnerships with leading NPR stations for live radio broadcasts, and assisted in the launch of sister festivals in the United States, Europe, Canada and Australia[2].

Spelman serves as the festival's Artistic Director.

Together with author and WNYC Radio host John Schaefer, Spelman founded the New York Guitar Festival in 1999.

In 2005 and 2006 Spelman was appointed curator of Other Words/Other Worlds, a festival celebrating National Jazz and Poetry Month at Flushing Town Hall in Queens, New York.

The festival featured workshops, film screenings, musical performances, and a 24-hour poetry jam session.

Musicians who performed included Matthew Shipp, The Nat Jones Trio, Peter Apfelbaum, Chris Cheek, as well as local high-school jazz ensembles.

Readings included Spanish, Russian, Korean and Chinese poets, a second grade poetry club, and poets Everton Sylverton, Bob Holman, and Hal Sirowitz.

In 2006, Spelman partnered with Carnegie Hall to co-commission the guitarist-composer Bill Frisell to present a program of new works featuring the world premiere of a multimedia piece created in collaboration with visual artist Jim Woodring.

Woodring is an American cartoonist, fine artist, writer and toy designer, best known for the dream-based comics be published in his magazine Jim, and as the creator of the anthropomorphic cartoon character Frank, who has appeared in a number of short comics and graphic novels.

The evening featured Bill Frisell's 858 Quartet and with Jenny Scheinman (violin), Eyvind Kang (viola), Hank Roberts (cello), and special guests Ron Miles (trumpet), and Greg Tardy (tenor sax and clarinet).

In a 2009 interview, with Allan Kozinn, published in the New York Times Sunday Arts & Leisure, Spelman discussed the influence of classical guitarist and composer Benjamin Verdery, whom he had first encountered in a master class in Santa Cruz, California.

Luminato, Canada’s largest multi-disciplinary arts festival, hired Spelman in 2009 as Guest Curator.

The Globe and Mail's James Bradshaw wrote: "to attract top-flight talent, Luminato tapped into the mind and rolodex of David Spelman."

Programing highlights included outdoor concerts by Goran Bregovic, The Derek Trucks Band, Daniel Lanois, Taj Mahal, Randy Bachman, Pandit Debashish Bhattacharya, an all-day Brazilian Guitar Marathon (co-curated by The Assad Duo), and a sold-out tribute to Neil Young at Massey Hall, featuring the Cowboy Junkies; Holly Cole; Danny Michel; Steven Page; Carole Pope; Bill Frisell Trio; Issa (formerly Jane Siberry); Colin Linden; Stevie Jackson (Belle & Sebastian); Harry Manx; Jason Collett; Sarah Slean and musical director Kevin Breit.

The Neil Young tribute attracted front page coverage in local and national newspapers, and was broadcast on CBC Radio.

The Long Count had its premiere on September 11, 2009 at the Krannert Center for the Performing Arts, and was a collaboration between visual artist Matthew Ritchie and twin brothers Aaron and Bryce Dessner, best known as members of the indie rock band The National.

The multimedia work was loosely based on the Mayan creation story Popol Vuh and included a 12 piece orchestra and four guest singers; Kim Deal, Kelley Deal, Matt Berninger, and Shara Worden.

Following the Krannert Center performance, the work had its New York premiere at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, and traveled to London's Barbican Center, and Amsterdam as part of the Holland Festival.

In April 2009, for National Poetry Month, Arts World Financial Center enlisted David Spelman to curate and produce a tribute to Pablo Neruda, the 1971 Nobel Prize in Literature winner.

The event, Songs of Love & Despair: A Musical Tribute to Pablo Neruda, featured performances and readings by Clogs, the Czech experimental musician Irene & Vojtech Havel, Chilean poet Cecilia Vicuña, Colin Stetson (Sway Machinery, Bell Orchestre, Arcade Fire), Pedro Soler with Basque vocal improviser Beñat Achiary, poet and Bowery Poetry Club founder Bob Holman, experimental performance artist Laurie Anderson, and rock musician Lou Reed.

In 2010, Spelman served as music supervisor for Vidal Sassoon The Movie, a feature-length documentary about revolutionary hairstylist Vidal Sassoon.

The soundtrack features music by American Music Club's Mark Eitzel (who contributed a cover of the Ira Gershwin song 'S Wonderful), post-rock chamber ensembles Clogs (featuring Padma Newsome and Bryce Dessner of The National), Redhooker, and Arcade Fire side project Bell Orchestre.

The film had its premiere at the 2010 Tribeca Film Festival.

Spelman has commissioned scores by Justin Vernon of Bon Iver, Bill Frisell, Marc Ribot, James Blackshaw, Gyan Riley, David Bromberg, Steve Kimock, Alex De Grassi, and Chicha Libra, for classic silent films by Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Harry Everett Smith, Yasujirō Ozu, Wu Yonggang, and Georges Méliès.

The critic John Fordman, writing in The Guardian, called The Great Flood "one of the highlights of the 2012 London Jazz Festival."

The project was the third collaboration between Frisell and filmmaker Bill Morrison, who has worked with some of the most important composers of our time, including John Adams, Gavin Bryars, Henryk Gorecki, David Lang, Harry Partch, and Steve Reich.

Highlights included a reading of C.S. Lewis’ Screwtape Letters as well as a year-long, complete reading of John Milton's epic 17th century poem Paradise Lost.