David Huang Mailman is a composer, arranger, and researcher who aspires to fuse his musicological studies and compositional output into an interdisciplinary practice where research and expression go hand-in-hand.
In musicology, David's concentration is in twentieth-century Chinese music, particularly the interaction of politics, national identity construction, and musical composition in the mid- and late-twentieth century. He recently presented his work on the political subtexts of the Yellow River Piano Concerto's (re)orchestration at the 2024 American Musicological Society South Central Chapter Meeting. David also works to introduce arrangements of Chinese classical music to the Western band repertoire.
In 2021, David was the collegiate winner of the National Association for Music Education's Student Composers Competition. Their work for band "Dazhai" was a finalist in the 2023 "The President's Own" Marine Band Call for Scores and was featured as the finale work for the 2024 Florida State University Festival of New Music.
David earned their B.A. studying Chinese history, music, and musicology at Vanderbilt University, where they studied composition under Michael Slayton and Stan Link. He is at UNCSA to earn his M.M. in music composition, studying with Lawrence Dillon.