David Garner
David Kirkland Garner is a composer, teacher, performer, producer, and scholar whose work is rooted in listening, transcription, and collaboration. His music spans acoustic and electronic media, from solo and chamber works to orchestral, vocal, and film scores.
Recent projects include Mr Baptiste, a collaboration with poet Ishion Hutchinson and Imani Winds inspired by early Afro-diasporic music in 17th-century Jamaica; Chronodrift & Nocturne, a album-length work for piano and electronics exploring microrhythm; and Eight Songs for Steffen Thomas, a cello and piano soundtrack for the documentary Steffen Thomas: Rock & Chisel, which premiered on Georgia PBS in 2023. His music has been performed by Kronos Quartet, Imani Winds, yMusic, Contemporaneous, earspace, Invoke, Vega Quartet, Ciompi Quartet, Atlanta Chamber Players, and the South Carolina Philharmonic.
Garner's first album, Dark Holler (New Focus Recordings, 2017), drew on archival American roots music, prompting I Care If You Listen to describe his approach as one that "resonates with a visceral, almost hypnotic energy." In 2023 he founded Sourwood Records, a digital label dedicated to new music, which debuted with Eight Songs for Steffen Thomas and has since released Short Stories, Vol. 1 with Greg Stuart, The Great Plains with pianist Molly Morkoski, and Longshore Drift with Eudaimonia flute quartet.
Garner has received a Charles Ives Scholarship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, an ASCAP Young Composer Award, and first prizes in the OSSIA, Red Note, and NACUSA competitions. He is Assistant Professor of Composition at Kennesaw State University, having previously taught at the University of South Carolina for ten years, and holds degrees from Duke University, the University of Michigan, and Rice University
