David Langlitz has held the position of Principal Trombonist with the Metropolitan Opera for over 40 years, a position he attained at the age of 21. He holds both Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Music from the Juilliard School in New York City.

Mr. Langlitz has performed with most of the legendary conductors in recent history, including: James Levine, Leonard Bernstein, Sir Georg Solti, Riccardo Muti, Carlos Kleiber, Sir Simon Rattle, Seiji Ozawa, Valery Gergiev and Daniel Barenboim. He has performed regularly on the Metropolitan Opera “Live in HD” movie theater broadcasts that screen throughout the United States, Europe and Japan. Performances as soloist and with chamber music ensembles throughout the United States, Europe and Asia.

The New York Times reviewed Mr. Langlitz’s Carnegie Recital Hall solo performance of Luciano Berio’s Sequenza V as “witty and technically brilliant”.

He has been the recipient of a Fulbright Lecturing Award to Asia and was one of the first American brass players invited to perform and teach in the Peoples Republic of China at the major music conservatories in both Beijing and Shanghai. Mr. Langlitz has taught trombone at the Julliard School of Music (pre-college division), Manhattan School of Music, Yale University, New York University, and the Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara, California. In addition to giving master classes and lectures, Mr. Langlitz also coaches the Verbier Festival Orchestra brass section in Switzerland during the summer.

Mr. Langlitz has recorded for Sony, Deutsches Grammophone, Columbia, Phillips, EMI, and RCA Masterworks record labels.

Mr. Langlitz also has an MFA in Film Directing from New York University, Tisch School of the Arts, where he studied directing in master class with Arthur Penn and editing with Spike Lee. Further studies with Marc Lapadula and Harold Guskin. His short film Angel Passing (writer, director, producer) premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, won numerous awards at domestic and international film festivals, and screened on American and French television. Angel Passing was recently accepted into the Sundance Film Archive at UCLA. Mr. Langlitz directed the feature film Mentor starring Rutger Hauer.

David Langlitz’s Programs 

What Makes Great Opera Great? 

Opera holds universal appeal as one of the greatest and most enduring treasures of western civilization. This presentation highlights the great composers, singers and conductors that have brought this extraordinary art form to audiences worldwide for over 300 years. How did opera begin and what factors contribute to making it the multi-media experience that it is?

Supported by timeless recordings as well as visual material, Mr. Langlitz will discuss the masterworks of opera’s greatest composers, including Mozart (Don Giovanni, Magic Flute), Bizet (Carmen), Verdi (La Traviata, Otello), Wagner (Ring Cycle) and Puccini (La Boheme/Tosca).

Excerpts cited will include performances by Pavarotti, Callas, Domingo, Price, Caruso, Corelli, Nilsson and Kaufmann, as interpreted by the great opera conducting Maestros Levine, Pradelli, Toscanini and Von Karajan.

The productions of Zeffirelli, Schenk and Ponnelle will be discussed, and how the elements of production design from these visionary artists complemented the music and libretto. Opera’s groundbreaking technological innovations will be presented as well; from its creation in the 17th century to 21st century live HD Theater broadcasts.

Movie Music Magic 

“Movies need the cement of music.” Bernard Herrmann (music composer for Hitchcock’s Vertigo, Psycho, North by Northwest) 

This lecture will explore the elements that comprise great film music, from the silent films of the 1920s up to contemporary times. How do composers create a musical score that both enhances the psychological and emotional dimension of the film story and simultaneously supports the director’s vision? How does the composer’s use of melody, harmony, rhythm and orchestration (selection and grouping of instruments) affect the drama of the story and emotional impact of a scene? The composer’s process: at what point in the film production does the composer become involved, and what series of challenges does he or she need to overcome to create the greatest emotional impact? These are a few of the broad range of topics that are relevant to the film composer’s craft that will be presented and discussed.

As we delve deeply into the art of film music we will view segments from great feature films, giving special attention to exceptional Director/Composer collaborations including: Alfred Hitchcock and Bernard Herrmann, George Lucas/Steven Spielberg and John Williams, Federico Fellini and Nino Rota, Francois Truffaut and Georges Delerue and others.

This lecture will also cover renowned director’s use of great classical music, including the films of: Ingmar Bergman, Francis Ford Coppola, Stanley Kubrick and Luchino Visconti. Excerpts from these films will be screened along with the accompanying musical scores.

Classical Music Matters 

There are compelling reasons why classical music has survived the test of time and keeps being performed in the world’s concert halls and opera houses, as well as being heard in current pop music, television shows and movies.

Who were the great composers of the past who inspire us to this day, and what was the source of their inspiration? How does classical music affect our contemporary culture? How were these creative geniuses, often living in turbulent times and under great duress, manage to compose some of their greatest masterpieces? Tracing the history of classical music, emphasis will be given to the works of Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Wagner, Verdi, Mahler, Debussy, Bartok and Stravinsky, and the context in which they lived.

Historic recordings of some the world’s greatest classical music performances will be presented as well as clips from television and movies, as we journey into the hearts and minds of these extraordinary artists, and of the performers who continue to bring these masterpieces to life.