David M. Booth, D.M.A.

M140 Creative Arts Center
(937) 775-2545
david.booth@wright.edu

Dr. David M. Booth is professor of music and Director of Bands at Wright State University, where he serves as music director and conductor for the Wright State University Wind Symphony and Chamber Players, and instructs courses in instrumental conducting and music education. He has served in similar faculty appointments at Indiana State University and the University of Oregon. Over the years, ensembles under his direction have performed at state and regional conferences including OMEA state conferences in Oregon and Ohio, and have conducted several concert performance tours throughout the United States and Japan.

David Booth earned his doctorate in instrumental conducting at the University of Oklahoma, under the tutelage of William K. Wakefield. In 1994 he was awarded the Oklahoma School of Music’s coveted Gail Boyd de Stwolinski Award for meritorious scholarship and musical performance achievements. He has since become well-known for his dissertation, "An Analytical Study of David Maslanka’s A Child’s Garden of Dreams," which has drawn praise from the composer himself. As a visiting scholar at the University of Michigan, Dr. Booth pursued post-doctoral study in with wind conducting and repertoire with H. Robert Reynolds. Other principal conducting mentors have included Wayne Bennett and Melvin Shelton. Baccalaureate and masters degrees were earned at Boise State University (1979), and the University of Oregon (1987), respectively.

A native of the Pacific Northwest, Dr. Booth has taught at all public school levels in the states of Idaho, Oregon, and Montana, and during the 1980s was particularly known for his achievements with the award-winning Sprague High School Band program of Salem, Oregon.

Having conducted extensively throughout the United States and Japan, Dr. Booth continues to maintain an extremely active schedule as a popular guest conductor and clinician for collegiate ensembles, high school groups, and honor bands across the country. His professional affiliations include continuous membership and participation in College Band Directors National Association, Music Educators National Conference, Ohio Music Education Association, and the National Band Association. In addition, he has been awarded lifetime memberships in Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia, Phi Beta Mu, and Pi Kappa Lambda Music Honor Society, and is listed in Who’s Who Among America’s Teachers 2000. Along with the rigorous pace and demands that accompany a dynamic artistic life, Dr. Booth avidly pursues such hobby interests as jazz drumming, water skiing, boating, moutaineering, snowmobiling, and flyfishing whenever possible.