David Rourke

David Rourke is a Montreal-born guitarist based in New York, working both as a straight-ahead jazz sideman and as a singer-songwriter under his own name. He earned a bachelor's degree in jazz performance at McGill University and a master's degree at The Juilliard School, graduating from the latter in 2022. In 2019 he took first place at the International Jarek Smietana Jazz Guitar Competition in Krakow, in a field judged by Mike Stern and Peter Bernstein. His debut album An Evening of Fiction, released in 2022, folds pop and rock songwriting into a jazz vocabulary, and he played, sang and produced nearly all of it himself. He has toured as a member of Tony DeSare's group, appearing with orchestras including the New York Pops at Carnegie Hall, and plays regularly at Smalls, Mezzrow, Dizzy's and Ornithology.