Gratitude,
released April 2016, is my most recent work, produced with my long time colleague Mickey Houlihan and Wind Over the Earth.
Prayer for Compassion,
released January 20, 2009,
represents one of the deepest and most creative experiences of my life.
My long-time producer and colleague, Mickey Houlihan, and I
have patiently worked with this music for ten years.
Each title represents a journey into a way of being that, for us, holds the world together.
We have used the studio as an impressionist painter might use a palette.
Mickey and his wonderful friends at Wind Over The Earth and Immersive Studios have used technologies and techniques both old and new to help each composition find its way into being.
Eight String Religion,
released in 1993,
is one of the all-time
favorite creations of my collaborations with Mickey.
Like Prayer for Compassion, this project also took many years to create.
It also reveals the process of deep listening that has become central to our work together.
I've also been involved in new CD collaborations with a range of artists with varied and wonderful styles:
Finally, for those of you who love Poetry as I do, please check out
The Tao of Poetry with my long time colleagues
Chungliang Al Hung and Coleman Barks.
The ancient and modern poetry from China spoken both in English and Chinese is a deep and
philosophical tribute to the great legacy that can guide us in these modern times.
Thank you for your support and love for all these many years!
Please enjoy the music samplers that are on many pages on my site.
Here are some tracks from various recording projects.
For all my recordings, visit the Recordings Page.
... and here's a YouTube video of a solo from the Colin Walcott Tribute Concert, May 12, 1985 - enjoy!
... and a recent collaboration with the Many Rivers Ensemble ...
Sometimes you hear a voice through the door calling you,
as fish out of water hear the waves,
or a hunting falcon hears the drums.
Come back. Come back.
This turning toward what you deeply love saves you.
— Rumi, translated by Coleman Barks
This is true “art music”—vivid and orchestral in scope, yet rich with subtle microtonal movements. It is simultaneously an ode to love and an intimate communion with all things. Love becomes at once the inquiry, the answer, and the life within the music. May listening open your heart to your own story, your own longing. —Silvia Nakkach
With In Love and Longing, acclaimed composer and vocalist Silvia Nakkach and Grammy® Award-winning cellist David Darling beckon us into a moving journey: Nakkach's spiritually profound vocals in dialogue with Darling's luminous cello merge to immerse us in a powerful experience of deep listening and emotional release.
These tender musical explorations draw upon many places, languages, and cultures, creating an acoustic landscape that evokes a colorful tapestry of feeling, sensuality, and prayer. They invite us to become alchemists who see music transformed into images, and images into poetry, feeling all of it from the depths of our hearts.
With Steve Gorn, flute; Kit Walker, piano; Christopher Willits, guitar.
David’s Grammy-winning cello and Jane’s expressive piano connect deeply to create these moving duets, improvised at the moment of recording. Lyrical, meditative, energetic contemporary classical, and India-modal pieces with inventiveness and artistry.
Neil Tatar is a wonderfully talented Guitarist and multi Instrumentalist. I recently collaborated with him on the creation of his stunning new CD Where Did The Time Go. Neil has shown on this CD his amazing talents as a composer and also as a multitalented Jazz and Blues guitarist. He is a pleasure to know, and I truly enjoy working with him.
A 2-CD set of inspiring, relaxing cello-piano duets combining the elements of both New Age and Classical music traditions
… lyrical melodies at times rich and exalting, or ethereal and impressionistic, others with refreshing, gentle spaciousness.
This album was recorded live improvising for 2 days, February 6–7, 2012, with Surround Sound/DSD equipment at Immersive Studios in Boulder, Colorado
“What I had thought of before as God, I met today in a human being.”
Those were the words of the Persian mystic poet Rumi upon meeting the wild dervish Shams Tabriz. And out of their friendship bloomed many of Jelaludin Rumi's most inspired verses. On Just Being Here, the acclaimed poet Coleman Barks joins master cellist David Darling in a celebration of friendship-some of Rumi's most memorable poems on the subject and five of Coleman's own-illuminated within the interplay of Coleman's inspired readings and David's music. Listen in and let them widen and deepen your senses, like a fresh breeze that invites you to breathe freely and surrender to love in all of its changing guises.
The HBO Film 12th and Delaware, produced and directed by Heidi Ewing, Rachel Grady, has been nominated for Outstanding Achievement in Original Music Score in the 2011 Cinema Eye Honors Awards. The original music score by David Darling was done for this film that explores the core of America's most intractable conflict.
This edition of Eight String Religion was undertaken by Winston Ma of First Impression Music. Extreme care was taken to re-master the original recording tapes to DXD Format (24-bit 352.8KHz) for superb sound quality. The package is completed with extensive liner notes.
For more than a decade, Chungliang Al Huang and David Darling have been exploring the development of a series of Chinese poetry recordings. The first in this series of CDs is finally completed with poetry by eleven Chinese poets.
The HBO Film 12th and Delaware, produced and directed by Heidi Ewing, Rachel Grady, has been nominated for Outstanding Achievement in Original Music Score in the 2011 
