David M. Arden (born September 6, 1949) is an American concert pianist whose performing and recording career has focused predominantly on contemporary and American classical repertoire,[1] including premiere performances and first recordings of piano works by a number of notable contemporary composers, such as Henryk Górecki,[2] Luciano Berio,[3] Earle Brown,[4] Carson Kievman[5] and David Lang.[6] The Russian composer Galina Ustvolskaya named Arden's recording of her 12 Preludes for Piano as her preferred recording of that work.[7]
In addition to his performing career, Arden has been active as a music pedagogue, authoring the early-years piano instruction book Creative Music-Making at the Piano,[8] establishing the New School of Piano in San Francisco,[9] and founding Keys to Achievement Foundation,[10][11] a nonprofit organization that places music keyboard instruction programs in US public schools.