David P. Sartor (rhymes with “Carter”) is a concert music composer and conductor, and is Adjunct Professor of Composition at Trevecca Nazarene University. Sartor's compositions have been recognized with prestigious awards that include the American Bandmasters Association's Ostwald Prize for Symphonic Wind Ensemble Music, the National Fine Arts Award, a New Music for Young Ensembles composition prize, twenty-two consecutive ASCAP awards, and a “highly commended” award in England’s Oare String Orchestra's Third Annual International Music for Strings Composition Contest.  He was a finalist in both the Columbia Symphony Orchestra’s American Composer Competition and the Fauxharmonic Orchestra's Adagio Composition Contest, and recently won the Burlington (VT) Chamber Orchestra’s Composer Competition with his Reveries for String Orchestra.

Sartor is the most recent recipient of the Thor Johnson Memorial Commission by the Delta Omicron Foundation.  The Johnson Commission, awarded every three years to a distinguished composer of concert music, funds the creation of a new composition to be featured at the international organization’s Triennial Conference.   Sartor's new work for string quartet, Passages, was premiered on July 17, 2009 by the Atlantis String Quartet at the Triennial Conference in Cincinnati, which also coincided with the 100th anniversary of Delta Omicron.   Following the premiere, Sartor was inducted as a National Patron of Delta Omicron in recognition of his accomplishments as a composer and conductor.

The recipient of commissions from a variety of ensembles, Sartor’s music has been performed by noted artists such as the Cincinnati, Knoxville, Brevard, Kiev and Czech Symphony Orchestras, the Burlington, Nexus and Mission Chamber Orchestras, the Cathedral Choral Society at the Washington (D.C.) National Cathedral, the Minneapolis Vocal Consort, the Chestnut Brass, bassist John Deak, soprano Cheryl Studer, organist Peter Fyfe, the Indiana Wind Symphony, and the "President's Own" United States Marine Corps Concert Band in Washington, D.C.   His Metamorphic Fanfare, commissioned and premiered by Kirk Trevor and the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra, has received widespread critical acclaim and, along with his Concerto for Orchestra and Black Ball Counts Double, has been recorded by the Kiev Philharmonic with Robert Ian Winstin conducting for release on ERM Media's "Masterworks of the New Era" CD series. In addition to his concert music activities, Sartor is an alumnus of the acclaimed Steven Scott Smalley Film Scoring Workshop and, to date, he has scored more than two dozen widely-distributed video documentaries and features.

Compositions by Sartor have been featured nationally and internationally at the Tanglewood, Aspen and Sewanee Music Festivals, the International Double Bass Festival, the Percussive Arts Society International Convention, the International Music Festival in San Jose Costa Rica, The World's Largest Organ Concert, and at Carnegie Hall, with broadcast performances on National Public Radio and local affiliates.   A popular guest composer, conductor and lecturer, his engagements include the Washington National Cathedral, Illinois State University, Middle Tennessee State University, the Nexus Chamber Orchestra and California State University, sponsored by New York City’s Meet The Composer Foundation.

A respected conductor, Sartor studied with Donald Neuen and Karen Lynne Deal, and in workshops with Kenneth Schermerhorn and John Morris Russell.  He founded and served as Music Director of two chamber ensembles and conducts his own works by invitation as well.  An enthusiastic proponent and performer of contemporary music, his appearances include the Nashville Symphony Orchestra, the Middle Tennessee Symphony, the Nexus Chamber Orchestra, the Vanderbilt Orchestra, the Knoxville Brass Choir, the Dogwood Arts Festival Chamber Orchestra, the Trevecca Symphony, and the California State University Symphonic Band.  His commentaries about contemporary music have been featured in various composer journals and professional publications.

Sartor received his education at the Blair School of Music, the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory, and the University of Tennessee, where he studied with John Anthony Lennon and David Van Vactor.   He holds full memberships in Phi Kappa Phi, Pi Kappa Lambda, the American Music Center, ASCAP, the American Federation of Musicians, the Conductors Guild, the National Association of Composers USA, the Center for the Promotion of Contemporary Composers, the American Composers Forum, the World Association for Symphonic Bands and Ensembles, and the Society of Composers, Inc., and is included in Who’s Who in American Music, The International Who’s Who in Music and Who's Who in America®.   Sartor’s works are published by E.C. Schirmer, Shawnee Press, and by his own publishing company, Metamorphic Music.   Selected works are also available through Theodore Front Music Literature Inc., Van Nuys, California.

Sartor resides in Middle Tennessee with his wife, the author Nancy Sartor.