Derek David is a composer, conductor, and music educator based in Boston, Massachusetts. His dramatic and vibrant chamber, vocal, and orchestral music has been performed in both Europe and throughout the United States. He has been commissioned by Juventas Ensemble, Verona Quartet, Del Sol String Quartet & Nicholas Davies, violist Jesse Morrison, SAKURA Cello Quintet, The Sonica Quartet, The Sounding Board, the San Francisco Conservatory of Music New Music Ensemble, and the Institute for Jewish Research (YIVO). His music was recently featured in the LA Philharmonic’s Noon to Midnight Festival and the Boston Festival for New Jewish Music.
Derek has received funding from the Cambridge Cultural Council, Combined Jewish Philanthropies, and MIT Center for Art, Science & Technology. Derek has been the recipient of the EAMA Nadia Boulanger Institute Prize (2011), Morton Gould ASCAP Award (2011), first place in the 2015 American Prize in Composition–Chamber Music, San Francisco Conservatory of Music’s New Art Song Competition, and the SFCM Hoefer Prize. He is a 2024 and 2025 Artist-in-Residence at the Byrdcliffe Artist Guild in Woodstock, NY .
Derek is a Yiddishist specializing in music of the Yiddish. Since 2018, Derek has been the musical director and conductor of ‘A Besere Velt’ - אַ בעסערע װעלט, one of three choirs in the world —and the largest— dedicated to the performance and preservation of Yiddish repertoire. As a vocalist, with studies from Ethel Reim, Derek has presented solo interpretations of Yiddish folksong in academic and artistic settings. He has presented on Yiddish music and folksong at Lehrhaus in Somerville, MA, Sorbonne Université, and Bard College Conservatory of Music. He is choral director of the Yiddish New York annual festival and was a 2024 KlezKanada Azrieli Scholar.
Derek studied composition at The San Francisco Conservatory of Music and received Masters and Doctoral degrees from The New England Conservatory. As an enthusiastic educator, Derek has taught theory and musicianship at the New England Conservatory, The Boston Conservatory at Berklee, at The Walden School, and was previously a Teaching Fellow at Harvard University where he was a five-time recipient of the Distinction in Teaching Award. He is currently Lecturer in Music at The Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His areas of interest extend to Medieval theory and musicology, The Beatles, and music of the Yiddish world.
“A true musical jewel of the 21st Century” (String Quartet No. 1)
— Sabino Pena, ClassiqueNews
“dazzled by [his] capability and musicality...masterful demonstration of technique” (Viola Sonata)
— Composer John Adams
“[a] daring work… that left us wanting to hear more.” (String Quartet No. 1)
— The Boston Musical Intelligencer