Rate My Professor David Clem

Dr. David Clem serves as Dean of the Greatbatch School of Music and Associate Professor of Music History and Literature at Houghton University. A graduate of the institution, he earned his B.Mus. and M.Mus. in Composition from the Greatbatch School of Music, an M.A. in Music History, and a Ph.D. in Historical Musicology and Music Theory from the University at Buffalo, SUNY. His doctoral dissertation, “O Fortuna and the Mythic Medieval: A Study in Multimedia Receptions,” completed under the direction of James Currie, explores pre-existing music in multimedia contexts using register theory. Dr. Clem teaches undergraduate courses including surveys in the History of Western Music, Introduction to Film Music, and History of Rock and Roll and Commercial Music. At the graduate level, his offerings include Research and Bibliography, Graduate History Review, special topics seminars in Music History, and the MHUM seminar Music, Worship, and Culture in Christian Perspective. His research interests include the theory and history of musical multimedia, music and philosophy, and the application of linguistic models from semiotics and pragmatics to music. He presents regularly at the Music and the Moving Image Conference at NYU’s Steinhardt School, the Society for American Music, and the Houghton Faculty Lecture Series.

In addition to his academic roles, Dr. Clem is active as a composer and violist, performing as a section violist with the Southern Tier Symphony and Houghton Symphony Orchestra. He served ten years as a section violist and on the Conductor Search Committee for the Cheektowaga Community Symphony Orchestra, and ten years as a section violist, nine years as a board member, and two years as board chairman for Amherst Chamber Ensembles, Inc. His awards and fellowships include a 2019 nomination for Houghton College’s Excellence in Teaching Award; GSEU Retention Awards in 2014 and 2015; Presidential Fellowships and Teaching Assistantships from 2011 to 2015 at the University at Buffalo; a Full Graduate Assistantship from 2005 to 2007 at Houghton; a Music Scholarship from 2001 to 2005; and selection for the Buffalo Philharmonic Young Composer’s Forum in 2006.