David Froom was born in California in 1951. His music has been performed extensively throughout the United States by major orchestras, ensembles, and soloists, including, among many others, the Louisville, Seattle, Utah, and Chesapeake Symphony Orchestras, the United States Marine and Navy Bands, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the 21st Century Consort, the New York New Music Ensemble, violinist Curtis Macomber, and saxophonist Kenneth Tse. He also had performances in England, France, Germany, Austria, Italy, Holland, Cyprus, China, and Australia. His music is available on CD on the Bridge, New Dimensions, Delos, Arabesque, Capriccio, Centaur, Sonora, Crystal, Opus 3, and Altissimmo labels, and on all the listening apps. Â His music is published by American Composers Alliance (BMI).
Among the many organizations that bestowed honors on him were the American Academy of Arts and Letters (Academy Award, Ives Scholarship), the Guggenheim, Fromm, Koussevitzky, and Barlow Foundations, the Kennedy Center (first prize in the Friedheim Awards), the National Endowment for the Arts, The Music Teachers National Association (MTNA-Shepherd Distinguished Composer for 2006), and the state of Maryland (five Individual Artist Awards). His biography is included in Groves. He had a Fulbright grant for study at Cambridge University, and fellowships to the Tanglewood Music Festival, the Wellesley Composers Conference, and the MacDowell Colony. He taught at the University of Utah, the Peabody Conservatory, and from 1989, at St. Mary's College of Maryland, where he was professor and chair of the music department until his death in 2022. Â Prof. Froom was educated at the University of California at Berkeley, the University of Southern California, and Columbia University. His main composition teachers were Chou Wen-chung, Mario Davidovsky, Alexander Goehr, and William Kraft.