BIOGRAPHY

David Anthony Zee was "discovered" at age 12 by his church choir director, classical pianist and Peabody Conservatory faculty member Virginia Reinecke, who heard him playing popular songs for grade school friends during a rehearsal break. She asked who had taught him to play, he told her he "sort of figured them on his own," and the international concert artist immediately took him on as a student.

 

But the classical music career Virginia envisioned for David was not to be. He recalls, "I love Bach, Debussy, and Stravinsky, and I studied traditional four-part harmonization in college, but I was always much more comfortable playing for my friends, singing Simon and Garfunkel songs around the piano."

 

David's ability for quick study on pop keyboard and natural ear for vocals put him in demand among local bands. He played Doobie Brothers and Elton John covers for bell-bottomed dancers at high school events, while his adventurous jazz musician friends took him to concerts featuring McCoy Tyner, Ahmad Jamal, and other bebop pioneers.  

 

In the 1980s, David led a Chicago-style blues band, was a sideman in a Motown-style revue called the Rhythm Express, and began a 15-year solo engagement at Baltimore's Waterfront Hotel. His mix of quirky jokes, musical impressions, rowdy singalongs, and audience-tweaking keyboard tricks made him a local institution.

 

The 1990s brought David into an active career composing music for TV, film, and theater, creating scores and songs for Discovery Channel, HGTV, PBS, and countless educational and industrial programs. TV music was a natural fit with his 10-year run as music director for two political comedy theater troupes: DC-based "Gross National Product," featuring actors and writers from the legendary L.A. improv incubator "Groundlings"; and Baltimore's "Loyal Opposition," featuring Maryland Public TV kid show star Bob Heck. Coast-to-coast live comedy show bookings, as well as weekly performances at DC's Bayou and Arena Stage and the Baltimore Creative Alliance, introduced David to a national circuit of special event and theater audiences.

 

David has won several national awards for his compositions, including a 1994 New York Film Festival award for original music and the grand prize in the 2001 Music to Life competition for songs of social concern sponsored by Noel Paul Stookey of Peter, Paul and Mary.

 

David lived in Manhattan from 1997 to 2003, where he concentrated on the great American songbook. Returning to Baltimore after divorce from co-songwriter and ex-wife Ashley Pound, he continued an endless schedule of club and festival appearances.