Hi there! I’m David.* I’m a pianist, vocal­ist, com­pos­er, actor, and edu­ca­tor, and while you may have seen me per­form any­where from San Diego to South Africa—playing “Bil­ly” in Any­thing Goes or “Dr. Craven” in The Secret Gar­den or “Bruce” in Fun Home or even the title role of Bat Boy—I pre­fer to spend my off­stage time being intro­vert­ed in the cow-heavy, human-light “metrop­o­lis” of Boil­ing Springs, Penn­syl­va­nia.

As soon as I was tall enough to reach the piano key­board, my par­ents noticed me plunk­ing out the tunes to the var­i­ous songs I heard on Sesame Street, so when I was 6 they very wise­ly signed me up for pri­vate piano tech­nique and the­o­ry instruc­tion under the tute­lage of Dr. Judith Kier­stead. With­in a cou­ple of years I was accom­pa­ny­ing my ele­men­tary-school cho­rus and writ­ing my own songs. (The most mem­o­rable opus of this ear­ly peri­od was an eight-bar pen­ta­ton­ic expo­si­tion about a pair of dice.) A few years lat­er, at my high-school com­mence­ment cer­e­mo­ny at Mer­ri­weath­er Post Pavil­ion, I and two oth­er vocal soloists per­formed a piece I’d com­posed for the occa­sion, backed by the school choir and accom­pa­nied by piano and solo flute.

As an under­grad at Dick­in­son Col­lege I stud­ied with Tru­man Bullard (the­o­ry & com­po­si­tion), Pong-Hi Park (piano), and Bren­da Smith (voice), and received a Bach­e­lor of Arts (cum laude) in Music Com­po­si­tion & The­o­ry, along with both the Emil R. and Tamar Weiss Prize in the Cre­ative Arts and the Gould Memo­r­i­al Dra­ma Prize. My grad­u­ate work in the­ol­o­gy earned me a Mas­ter of Divin­i­ty from Lan­cast­er The­o­log­i­cal Sem­i­nary, where sev­er­al of my orig­i­nal choral com­po­si­tions were debuted.

In 2005 I returned to my alma mater to serve on the Music fac­ul­ty at Dick­in­son, where I taught piano, accom­pa­nied vocal ensem­bles, coached voice stu­dents, and served as Musi­cal Direc­tor for musi­cal the­atre pro­duc­tions until 2013.

As a Cre­den­tialed Music Leader in the Uni­tar­i­an Uni­ver­sal­ist Asso­ci­a­tion and an active mem­ber of the Asso­ci­a­tion for UU Music Min­istries, I was priv­i­leged to serve as Music Direc­tor for the Uni­tar­i­an Uni­ver­sal­ists of the Cum­ber­land Val­ley in Boil­ing Springs, PA, from 2008–2021, dur­ing which time I also served in many region­al and nation­al lead­er­ship roles, includ­ing UUA Gen­er­al Assem­bly Music Coor­di­na­tor for 2013 and 2014.  Cur­rent­ly I’m serv­ing on the Song Selec­tion Team for the UUA Dig­i­tal Hym­nal project, slat­ed to release in 2025.

In 2018 I joined the fam­i­ly of The Per­fect 5th Musi­cal Arts Cen­ter, where I offer pri­vate lessons, month­ly Vocal Per­for­mance Mas­ter Class­es, and oth­er spe­cial events.  And I also serve as adjunct voice fac­ul­ty at Shenan­doah Con­ser­va­to­ry, where I’m cur­rent­ly pur­su­ing a Mas­ter of Music in Vocal Ped­a­gogy (Con­tem­po­rary Com­mer­cial Music)—I expect to receive that degree in spring, 2026.

My hus­band Mark and I will cel­e­brate our 30th anniver­sary in 2025, and share a cozy but not-often-tidy home with our three feline “kids” Jake, Grayson, and Hen­ry.

*I call myself Dave, but nobody else does. And that’s the way I like it.