David Skidmore is a GRAMMY® Award-winning percussionist, GRAMMY-nominated composer, and musical entrepreneur. His work as both a composer and performer is characterized by an appreciation and affinity for music across a tremendous range of genres, including classical, pop, hip hop, film scores, rock, ambient, experimental, and the avant-garde.
David has composed music for film, dance, commercial music libraries, and live performance. He recently wrote the score to Help Me Understand, a short film by writer/director Aemilia Scott that premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2023. His music was also recently featured in choreographer Douglas Lee’s production entitled Puppet, commissioned by the Czech National Ballet. His compositions are performed regularly in concert halls and universities across the country. In 2021, he was nominated for a GRAMMY Award for Best Contemporary Classical Composition along with the other members of Third Coast Percussion and collaborators Clarice Assad and Sérgio Assad, for their album Archetypes. David has received commissions to compose for many of the world’s leading percussionists and percussion pedagogues. David was awarded 1st prize in the 2005 Percussive Arts Society Composition Contest and 2nd prize in the 2004 contest.
In 2005, David co-founded Third Coast Percussion, an ensemble that has performed hundreds of concerts across the country and around the world, presents an annual concert season at home in Chicago, teaches musicians of all ages and experience levels, and has commissioned dozens of new works by composers including Philip Glass, Missy Mazzoli, Devonté Hynes, Jlin, Danny Elfman, Clarice and Sérgio Assad, Missy Mazzoli, David T. Little, Timo Andres, Donnacha Dennehy, Chris Cerrone, Marcos Balter, Ted Hearne, Glenn Kotche and Augusta Read Thomas. Called “vibrant” and “superb” by Alex Ross of The New Yorker, Third Coast Percussion is Ensemble-in-Residence at Denison University. The ensemble won a Grammy award for Best Chamber Music / Small Ensemble Performance in 2017. David has also appeared on recordings for dozens of other classical artists, including Dmitri Tymoczko, Donnacha Dennehy, Ensemble Signal, and more.
David served for 4 years on the Board of Directors for the Chicago Chapter of the Recording Academy, and for 6 years on the Board of Directors for Chamber Music America. From 2009-2013, David taught on the percussion faculty at the Peabody Conservatory. He currently resides in Chicago.
David was a member of Ensemble Connect, a two-year fellowship program that is a partnership between Carnegie Hall, The Juilliard School, and the Weill Music Institute in partnership with the New York City Department of Education. He received a Bachelor of Music degree from the Northwestern University School of Music and a Master of Music degree from the Yale School of Music. His teachers have included Robert Van Sice, Michael Burritt, James Ross, James Hannah, Shawn Schietroma, and Michael Hernandez.
