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Derek David is a composer, conductor, and music educator based in Boston, Massachusetts. He has been commissioned by Juventas Ensemble, Verona Quartet, Del Sol String Quartet & Nicholas Davies, violist Jesse Morrison, SAKURA Cello Quintet, and the Institute for Jewish Research (YIVO). Derek has received funding from the Cambridge Cultural Council, Combined Jewish Philanthropies, and MIT Center for Art, Science & Technology. Awards include the EAMA Nadia Boulanger Institute Prize (2011), Morton Gould ASCAP Award (2011), American Prize in Composition–Chamber Music (2015, first prize), and the SFCM Hoefer Prize for his cumulative body of work. 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, the largest chorus dedicated to the performance and preservation of Yiddish repertoire. His work ranges from lectures on Yiddish music to singing Yiddish folksong. 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, He is currently Lecturer in Music at The Massachusetts Institute of Technology and has taught music theory at the New England Conservatory, The Boston Conservatory at Berklee, 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.

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Derek David is a composer, conductor, and music educator based in Boston, Massachusetts and is Lecturer in Music at The Massachusetts Institute of Technology.