David Kulma is a self-proclaimed public music nerd. Since his two music degrees from Kent State University, he spent almost a decade as both a freelance oboist and an adjunct music theory professor (Winthrop University and Kent State). In 2015, he created Music Corner, an educational YouTube channel featuring animated videos on music theory topics. More recently, he has been a freelance music critic for ClevelandClassical.com covering the range of Northeast Ohio's classical scene.

As a composer and performer, David is active in the American experimental tradition. He is the only person to perform from memory the role of Raoul de Noget in Robert Ashley's cult-classic television opera Perfect Lives. As Trystero, he and his collaborator composer-pianist Dorian Wallace have performed Perfect Lives in the Midwest and New York, co-wrote their own television opera pilot, and have their own podcast Trysteropod that mixes music and leftist politics. David's solo composing focuses on ravishing postminimalist landscapes and rambling story-singing with video.

As a scholar, David has published in Engaging Students and Hybrid Pedagogy. He is getting his doctorate in music theory to focus on two overlapping repertories — composers who continued writing tonally in the 20th century, and the composers of the American experimental tradition from Henry Cowell to the present.