David S. Carter is a music theorist and composer. He has published scholarship examining popular music in the journals Music Theory Online, Theory and Practice, Intégral: The Journal of Applied Musical Thought, and Revue musicale OICRM. He has presented papers at the Society for Music Theory annual meeting, the National Conference of the College Music Society, and at both the U.S. and International conferences of the International Association for the Study of Popular Music (IASPM).
His compositions have been performed or recorded by the JACK Quartet, the International Contemporary Ensemble, Ensemble Dal Niente, Ensemble Court-Circuit, and Ensemble Signal, among others. He is the recipient of a Summer 2023 Faith & Justice Research Grant from LMU for a compositional and research project, “Environmental Justice in Westchester and Inglewood: Reimagining the Soundscape.” He won the Iron Composer competition at Baldwin Wallace University, Northwestern University’s William T. Faricy Award, and second prize in the Rhenen International Carillon Composition Competition. He has had works performed at the Northwestern University New Music Conference (NUNC! 4 and NUNC! 3), June in Buffalo (2014 and 2011), the 2008 Summer Institute for Contemporary Performance Practice at New England Conservatory, Music07 at the University of Cincinnati, and the 2007 Bowdoin International Music Festival. Prior to joining LMU in Fall 2020, he taught at Northwestern University and North Park University. He earned his doctorate in music composition at Northwestern, where his principal teacher was Lee Hyla.
Prior to his graduate music studies, he earned a J.D. at the University of Southern California and a B.A. in English Literature at Yale University.