“You are my very favorite son.”

—Patty “Mom” Glasgow

Hi there!  I’m David*, and that’s me looking pensive up there in that box.  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.

Now a Credentialed Music Leader in the Unitarian Universalist Association and an active member of the Association for Unitarian Universalist Music Ministries, I’ve served as the UUA’s General Assembly Music Coordinator (for 2013 and 2014), and presented, coordinated, and facilitated discussions at Worship Arts Festivals and youth “CONs” of the UUA’s Joseph Priestley District and Central East Regional Group since 2009. And I was privileged to serve as Music Director for the Unitarian Universalists of the Cumberland Valley in Boiling Springs, PA, from 2008-2021.

In 2018 I joined the family of The Perfect 5th Musical Arts Center, where I offer private lessons several days each week (in addition to a couple of days each week teaching out of my home studio), facilitate monthly Voice Master Classes, and collaborate on their summer Musical Theatre Camp and other projects.

My husband Mark and I celebrated our 25th anniversary in 2020, and share a beautiful but not-often-tidy home with our four feline “kids”: Tobias, Sophia, Stewart, and Jake.  Mark and I both use “he/him/his” pronouns.

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