David's research focuses on nineteenth-century German aesthetics, specifically on discourses of German melodic theory between 1840 and 1860 with particular emphasis on Richard Wagner's position vis-à-vis vocal expression.  Other interests include Franz Liszt and post-classical Weimar, the intersection of improvisation and composition, relations between new media and modernism, and twentieth-century theories of musical performance.  His publications include editions and translations of nineteenth-century theorists, as well as research articles on Liszt's creative process, theories of duration in the age of Edison, and Rudolf Kolisch's theory of musical performance.  At present he is completing a monograph on Wagner's aesthetics of communication and materialist readings of emotional response.

He is also active as a collaborative pianist.  After winning a DAAD music fellowship, he spent a year at Leipzig's Hochschule für Musik und Theater "Felix Mendelssohn Bartholody" and was a finalist in the John Lill Piano Competition.  He has performed widely in America, Germany and the UK including, most recently, as a Young-Artist at the Britten-Pears festival in Aldeburgh.