From time to time on this page, we will profile individual department faculty and their recent activities.  For Spring 2011, we introduce the newest member of the department, David Cubek, Assistant Professor of Music in the Joint Music Program of Claremont-McKenna, Harvey Mudd, Pitzer, and Scripps Colleges. 

As part of his appointment in the Joint Music Program, David directs the Claremont Concert Orchestra, which provides a large number of Mudders (and students from the other Claremont Colleges) with the opportunity to participate in a full symphonic ensemble. He also teaches courses in music theory and history at Scripps College that carry departmental credit for HMC students.

Although he specializes in the performance of symphonic music from the end of the eighteenth century through the present, David is also interested in a variety of subjects, including multidisciplinary artistic genres (e.g. opera and cinema) and trans-cultural exchanges between American and European artists during the first half of the twentieth century. His dissertation examines a vocal-symphonic composition by Alexander Zemlinsky, an Austro-Jewish composer living in Berlin in the 1920s, who set to music verses by African-American poets associated with the Harlem Renaissance.

Born in Venezuela, David began piano and composition lessons at the age of 7, before entering the Simón Bolívar Conservatory in Caracas. In 1999 David went on to continue his education in Montreal, studying piano, music theory, and orchestral conducting at McGill University and the Conservatory of Montreal. He completed doctoral studies in orchestral conducting at Northwestern University in 2010, served as director of the University of Chicago Chamber Orchestra, and was a lecturer at McGill and Northwestern. David has also conducted ensembles in Brazil, the Czech Republic, and, more recently, from Venezuela’s “El Sistema,” an internationally-praised organization that fosters social change through orchestral training.

At Claremont, David has greatly enjoyed interacting with students and faculty from across the disciplines and is excited about continuing the strong tradition of music-making in the Harvey Mudd community.