David Graves has been writing a variety of musical works since the 1970s, including jazz, pop, electronic and "neoclassical" pieces for film, theater, studio and concert hall. He has studied at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, City College of San Francisco and the University of Nebraska. In 2003 and 2005 David was a resident composer with the Djerassi Resident Artist Program where he was awarded the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation Fellowship. He was also a resident composer with the Berkeley Symphony for two consecutive seasons and wrote six pieces that were performed as a part of their Under Construction series. His large-scale ambient works have been installed in a redwood canyon (tree/sigh), The LAB (deciduous), and San Francisco's renowned AudioBus (Human Street Textures).

He served on the Board of the San Francisco Composers Chamber Orchestra for seven seasons and had pieces performed annually by that ensemble as well as the Irregular Resolutions composer collective. For several seasons, he assisted with various aspects of ME'D1.ATE's Soundwave Festival (including technical support, curation and grant writing); he has composed and performed innovative multimedia performances for the festival since 2006.

David has also released albums with the prog-rock group ScienceNV, recorded several albums of pop vocal tunes, and received grants from the American Composers Forum and Meet the Composer. He was sound designer for Aurora Theater's Miss Julie (2009) and Shotgun Theater's production of Mary Stuart (2010). He continues to develop a collection of short video "dreams" (Living in the Village of My Dreams). He is a part of the AmbientBlack duo and create soundscapes such as the California Academy of Sciences' featurette Alien Worlds, and Fog and Expectations in Urban Bazaar's backyard garden.

Examples of all of the above works are on this website.