David Plylar

David is an accomplished composer, scholar, pianist and educator. He currently works as a music specialist and concert producer for the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. From 2010 to 2012 he served as the Artistic and New Music Coordinator of the KwaZulu-Natal Philharmonic Orchestra in South Africa, where he worked with composers, musicians and conductors from around the country and internationally to facilitate the creation and presentation of new music.

His award-winning compositions range from solo pieces to large orchestral works and independent film scores. David has received awards and recognition from the Meet the Composer Foundation, ASCAP, the American Music Center, the Minnesota Orchestra Reading Sessions and the Hanson Institute for American Music, among other organizations. He holds degrees from Duke University, the University of Louisville, and the Eastman School of Music, where he earned his PhD.

As an active champion of new works, David is the artistic director and pianist for the ensemble Out of Context. Specializing in new works and transcriptions, this flexible-instrumentation group has toured across the United States presenting concerts and master classes since 2007. The ensemble frequently collaborates with other musicians and composers.

When not composing or performing, David enjoys studying and writing about the music of his contemporaries and 19th/20th century music. An adaptation of his dissertation (exploring compositional, theoretical and musicological features of Franz Liszt's Three Funeral Odes) is featured in Volume 59 of the Journal of the American Liszt Society.