Conductor David Alexander Rahbee is a native of Boston. He studied conducting at the New England Conservatory, Université de Montréal, Universität für Musik und Darstellende Kunst in Vienna and at the Pierre Monteux School. He also studied violin and composition at Indiana University. He further refined his artistic training by participating in master-classes with Kurt Masur, Sir Colin Davis, Jorma Panula, Zdeněk Mácal, Peter Eötvös, Zoltán Peskó, Helmut Rilling and Otto-Werner Mueller.

In September 2013, he will become conductor of the orchestra at the University of Washington in Seattle, where he will work closely with Seattle Symphony Music Director Ludovic Morlot to build a new program for talented young conductors.

He was awarded the American-Austrian Foundation "Herbert von Karajan Fellowship" for young conductors in Salzburg (2003), as well as fellowships from International "Richard-Wagner-Verband-Stipend" in Bayreuth, Germany (2005), the Acanthes Centre in Paris (2007) and the Atlantic Music Festival in the USA (2010).

At the Salzburg Festival in 2003 he was assistant conductor of the International Attergau Institute Orchestra, where he also worked artistically with members of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra and guest conductors including Bobby McFerrin.

He has appeared in concert with the RTE National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland, Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg, l'Orchestre de la Francophonie, the Dresden Hochschule Orchestra, Orquesta Sinfonica de Loja (Ecuador), the Armenian Philharmonic Orchestra, "Cool Opera" of Norway (members of the Stavanger Symphony), the Savaria Symphony Orchestra, Schönbrunner Schloss Orchestra (Vienna), the Gächinger Kantorei, the Bach-Kollegium Stuttgart, the Kammerphilharmonie Berlin-Brandenburg and the Divertimento Ensemble of Milan.

In the genre of contemporary musical theatre, Rahbee lead a fully staged production of Bruno Maderna's chamber opera Satyricon with the Divertimento Ensemble. He also lead this ensemble in the Italian premiere of Helmut Lachenmann's Mouvement – vor der Erstarrung.

The first of his several ground-breaking articles on Gustav Mahler, “Gustave Charpentier’s Louise and Mahler’s Sixth Symphony” appears in the spring 2013 edition of the music journal Sonus.

His arrangement of the Overture to Rossini's Barber of Seville for trombone quartet has been recorded and released on CD by Summit Music, played by the quartet known as Four of a Kind, four of the world’s greatest trombonists. This arrangement, along with many others, is published by Warwick Music, England.

"...he displayed a technical precision and at the same time showed the highest musicality in such an impressive way that I would entrust all of my scores to him to work on and perform in the future. I wish to this great musician all the support for his advancement as a conductor and I am convinced that through this support, he will come through by extraordinary achievement, thanks to his gift, his spirited energy and his human as well as artistic integrity."

- Helmut Lachenmann