David Sprung retired from the San Francisco Opera orchestra in 2008 after 35 years as one of its two co-principal horns with the intention of focusing more on composing, conducting and free-lance performing. He was principal horn of the San Francisco Ballet Orchestra for over 25 years, is Professor Emeritus of Music at California State University, East Bay, and formerly was Associate Professor of Music at Sonoma State University, and Assistant Professor in Horn and Theory at Wichita State University. He has, at one time or another, served as substitute principal horn with almost every Bay Area symphonic organization, currently plays principal horn with the San Francisco Lyric Opera and is in his fourth season as principal horn with the Midsummer Mozart Festival. Elsewhere, Mr. Sprung was principal horn with the Pittsburgh Symphony, Chautauqua Symphony and Opera, Wichita Symphony, Pittsburgh Opera, Cabrillo Festival, Carmel Bach Festival and a member of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra. He can be heard on scores of some Disney classic films, including Beauty and the Beast, Hercules, Hunchback of Notre Dame and Pocahontas and has performed on a number of other film scores and recordings.

More recently, he was the founder, music director and conductor of the Flagler Symphonic Society in Flagler County, Florida. The San Francisco Composers Chamber Orchestra under his direction recently performed his Serendipities for chamber orchestra. He lectures on musical topics for the Osher Life Long Learning Institute at Cal State, East Bay.

Born in Jersey City, New Jersey and raised in New York City, Mr. Sprung received the BA in Music with Honors from Queens College and Master of Fine Arts degree in Composition from Princeton University, studying composition with Vittorio Rieti, Luigi Dallapiccola, Roger Sessions and Milton Babbitt and conducting with Boris Schwarz. Horn studies were private, under Lorenzo Sansone and Robert Schulze and, briefly, with Philip Farkas and Joseph Singer.

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This site will soon feature a list of David’s compositions with samples of the sheet music and sound files, videos of some performances he has played or conducted, as well as articles and other writings.