Program Faculty

Professor McHugh received a BS in Music Education from SUNY Fredonia and an MA in Composition from CUNY Queens.  While at Fredonia, he won 1^st. Place in the MENC composition contest two years in a row.  After graduating from Fredonia he studied composition with Jacob Druckman, head of the composition department at Yale.  Before beginning graduate school he was drafted and served two years in the US Army.   As a graduate student he studied with George Perle, Henry Weinberg and Leo Kraft.  While in graduate school he composed a concerto in three-movements for tuba and orchestra for the Louisville Symphony.   

 McHugh first ventured into the entertainment industry composing TV and radio commercials, penning such well-known jingles as Burger King, Schaeffer Beer, Coppertone, Mr. Coffee, US Steel, Maxwell House Coffee, Chevy Trucks, Finnair, CIE Perfume, and many more, and worked as an arranger/orchestrator/conductor for dozens of McDonald jingles, State Farm Insurance, and conceived and arranged the ABC World News music which has run for thirty-three years.  

He began writing songs, performing in clubs in NYC and on college campuses in Kentucky and Tennessee in the 70s.  During this period, he recorded an album of original songs produced by Bob Ezrin, of Pink Floyd’s, The Wall, fame.  He also began composing music for theater, scoring a number of productions including Maggie and the Blue Hotel, Merton of the Movies, Naomi Court, Charlemagne, Dracula, Yerma, directed by Gerald Freedman, The Miracle Worker, The First Day of Us, Estelle and Angelo, with book, music and lyrics by McHugh, Bamboo, the follow-up musical to Ken Harper’s, The Wiz, and most recently, My Mother The Fish, a dark comedy.  One of the songs from Bamboo was performed on Roberta Flack’s Blue Lights In the Basement album, earning him a Gold Record.  While living in NYC he continued to write concert music, completing an orchestral piece for the Louisville Youth Symphony, An Overture for Immigrants, Sojourners, and Settlers, performed in 1976.  

His first venture into expended scoring for film was for a 60-minute documentary, Jockeys.  He moved to Los Angeles in 1981 and immediately began scoring films.  His first score was for the movie, Nobody’s Perfekt, followed by Moscow On The Hudson, Mystic Pizza, Three Fugitives, The Dream Team, Prisoners of the Sun, Daddy’s Dyin’, Who’s Got the Will, and many more.  He produced Chaka Khan for the end title song, Freedom, for Moscow On The Hudson.  It was covered by the Pointer Sisters and earned a platinum record.  He has also scored many Movies of the Week for TV, as well as the music for a number of episodic TV shows, including Brooklyn Bridge, A Year In the Life, Sisters, and most recently, Strong Medicine.  He orchestrated and conducted all of his scores and often played and conducted from the piano if his favorite studio pianist was not available.

In 1995 he left Los Angeles to create and head the MFA Film Scoring Program at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts.  He taught there sixteen years before coming to Columbia College to head the MFA Film Scoring Program.  While at UNCSA he composed numerous works for modern dance, published two essays on aesthetics, had a sonata for alto flute and cello performed by faculty, was commissioned to compose a twenty-minute piece for orchestra and chorus in celebration of the new millennium, entitled, Prelude and Overture to the Third Millennium, which was premiered at a concert for the 100^th. Anniversary of the Arts Council of America, written two plays, one of which, Estelle and Angelo, was staged at UNCSA in 1997.

Throughout his career he has given seminars and has been a guest speaker at many college campuses including Bowling Green University, the University of Louisville, the Peabody Institute, SUNY Fredonia and Lamar University.  He received an Alumni Award from SUNY Fredonia in 1992.  He has been a music panelist at the River Run Film Festival in Winston Salem, NC, the Ashville Film Festival in Ashville, NC, The Pittsburg Film Festival, Pittsburg, PA, and the Charlottesville Film Festival, Charlottesville, VA.  He continues to compose concert music having recently completed a quartet for violin, clarinet, piano and cello, performed at the University of Louisville, April 2011, and a flute concerto in 3-movements, which is currently being circulated to orchestras.  He is an active songwriter, an inventor holding patents, a playwright, an essayist, short story writer, photographer, furniture maker, and poet.  His book, Wake Up, We’re In Heaven, can be downloaded from his website, davidmchugh.com, where much of his writing and music can be found.  He has raised three children, two boys and a girl.