Create • Play • Inspire

David Buchbinder is an award-winning performer, creator and producer in music and culture, working in the borderlands where people, cultures, genres and disciplines intersect. Read more >>

“David Buchbinder is an energetic spirit who [has] an unbounded love for every interval, rhythm and melody…and for everything he creates.”

— Halifax Chronicle Herald

“Buchbinder is…a jazz trumpeter producer activist whirlwind!”

— Globe and Mail

Create

Artistic Direction

Composition & Production

Inspire

Think Big, Speak, Write

Teach & Collaborate

Create

Artistic Direction, Composition & Production

David creates and directs multidisciplinary shows and festivals (Shurum Burum Jazz Circus, the Ward Cabaret), as originator, as a collaborator and under engagement with major arts companies. He composes for film, television and theater, his own projects and music groups, and he produces award-winning recordings.

Multidisciplinary Shows:

The Ward Cabaret

This musical-theatrical production propels audiences into the extraordinary sounds, stories and people of The Ward, Canada’s first multicultural neighbourhood and home to Blacks, Jews, Italians and Chinese, living together in a community that was “dirty, crowded, dangerous… and full of life!”

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The Jazz Circus

(Shurum Burum, Kaleidoscope, Orpheus) Using wild, dramatic movement in 4 dimensions, projections and mythic story to unlock the hidden narrative in Buchbinder’s musical world, his Jazz Circus presentations have appeared in Toronto and Vancouver.

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Routes of Andalusia

Commissioned by the Royal Conservatory/ Koerner Hall and presented as the opening concert for the Aga Khan Museum, Routes of Andalusia reimagines the musical richness of al Andalus and the interweaving sounds of the Iberian Arabs, Jews and Gypsies.

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Play

Musician & Music Groups

David is a virtuosic trumpeter, leads award-winning Global Music and Jazz ensembles, many of them connected to his Jewish roots (including David Buchbinder’s Odessa/Havana and The Flying Bulgar Klezmer Band), and performs with other musical projects. He has released 11 recordings, 4 music videos and toured extensively through Europe and the Americas.

Performance Ensembles:

Odessa/Havana

David Buchbinder’s Odessa/Havana is a JUNO-winning, cross-cultural ensemble bursting with the rich colours of Jewish and AfroCuban cultures, presenting “dazzlingly tuneful music, with powerful, swinging and lyrical playing”, that is “a stunning display of the unlimited potential of what world music has to offer”.

David Buchbinder's Jazz Circus

This contemporary jazz ensemble incorporate diverse influences from masters Mingus & Monk, Hard-Bop and Middle Eastern Traditions; infused with twisted FIlm-Noir, open free blowing and effervescent cartoon music the result is “an idiosyncratic, accessible gumbo.” (Toronto Star).

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Music at the Center of the River

Buchbinder, Rubin, Bergeman

New Orleans-based Music at the Center of the River is an imaginative deep dive into the sound of the Great River, the Mississippi, which figures centrally in each of this collective trio’s personal and creative journeys. The project combines original and traditional music along with text that evokes the river’s many faces over time.

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Nomadica

Nomadica re-imagines and recombines the rich, soulful and righteously celebratory musics of the Arabs, Gypsies and Jews. Led by Juno-award winning trumpeter and composer, David Buchbinder and vocalist, multi-instrumentalist and dancer, Roula Said, the band features soaring vocals, a front line of masterful improvisors and a heavily funky rhythm section. Music to fire up your heart and your hips!

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Inspire

Think Big, Speak, Write, Teach, Collaborate

David is a cultural innovator whose ideas lead to action with a broad range, from an internationally-renowned multidisciplinary festival (Ashkenaz Festival) to a creativity-based development organization (Diasporic Genius). He is an effective, inspiring public speaker and workshop leader and has developed Creative Pathfinders, a proprietary suite of creativity tools that have been transformative for established artists, emerging artists, and the general public. He also teaches trumpet technique, composition and improvisation and has recently made his debut as a published author.

Diasporic Genius

Diasporic Genius does creativity-fueled urban community development using Story, Culture, Festivals, Food, and Built Space projects to imagine the future of Toronto.

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Published Author

After many years of writing in his creative and business work, David has become a published author, with his contribution to a new Coach House Press book. Find out more about this and his future writing plans.

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