David Spear, Music Associate Professor, is a composer and conductor who began his 
career orchestrating many film scores for Elmer Bernstein including Animal House, Ghostbusters, Airplane and Heavy Metal. After his Broadway debut as Music Director of Merlin, the Magical Musical, Spear scored three Academy Award nominated films: Ballet Robotique, Rainbow War and The Courage to Care. He also wrote the music for the Emmy Award winning documentary, Surviving Everest, for National Geographic. He has led the London Symphony, the Royal Philharmonic, the Vancouver Symphony and the Munich Philharmonic in performances and recordings of his own works. Last season he conducted the Indianapolis Symphony in the premiere of Ron McCurdy's The Langston Hughes Project, featuring actor and rapper Ice-T.
Professor Spear has served on the faculties of the Berklee College of Music and the USC Thornton School of Music where, in 2005, he was awarded the Casden Institute Faculty Research Grant to re-score Samuel Goldwyn’s 1922 Classic Yiddish silent film Hungry Hearts, in collaboration with his students. The score and restored print premiered at the 2007 New York Jewish Film Festival at Lincoln Center. Prof. Spear holds a B.A. in music composition from UCLA, where he was awarded the Henry Mancini Scholarship.