David Rayl is professor of music, director of choral programs, and associate dean for graduate studies and research at the Michigan State University College of Music. Over the past 14 years he has mentored and served as principal conducting teacher and advisor to over 30 doctoral students and 60 master's students in choral conducting. Under his baton the University Chorale has appeared at the national convention of the American Choral Directors Association (2007), the Central Division convention of ACDA (2006), and the national meeting of the College Music Society (2002). He has also prepared the Chorale for eight sets of performances with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra and regularly serves as guest conductor with the Lansing Symphony Orchestra, leading large-scale choral-orchestral works.

Prior to joining MSU in 2002, he held the same position at the University of Missouri-Columbia for 12 years. He conducted the University Singers and Choral Union and taught in the undergraduate and graduate conducting programs. Under his direction, the University Singers sang at the national convention of the American Choral Directors Association (1995), at the 27th annual Florilège Vocale in Tours, France, (1998), and at Maggio Musicale in Florence, Italy, (2000).

Rayl has appeared as guest conductor, clinician, and adjudicator throughout the United States and has presented or conducted workshops at the national conferences of NCCO, NAfME, NATS, and MTNA, and divisional and state conferences of ACDA. He has appeared at Carnegie Hall twice, leading performances of Beethoven Mass in C and Faure Requiem.

His international engagements include the National Center for the Performing Arts and the China Conservatory in Beijing; Maggio Musicale in Florence; the Busan International Choral Festival in South Korea; the Classical Music Festival in Eisenstadt, Austria; the V Festival di Musica Antica in Urbino, Italy; the VII Festival Internaçional de Música de Camera do Pará, in Belem, Brazil; the II Festival de Corais in Brasilia, Brazil; the Painel Unicanto de Regencia Coral in Londrina, Brazil; and the Classical Music Festival in Montreal and Quebec City, Canada.

Several of his articles have appeared in the Choral Journal, The Journal of the Conductors' Guild, and Fontes Artes Musicae. His editions of Marc-Antoine Charpentier's Nine Settings of the Litany of the Blessed Virgin Mary were published by A-R Editions of Madison, Wisconsin.

Rayl received MSU’s University Distinguished Faculty Award in 2013 and the College of Music’s Dortha J. and John D. Withrow Award for Excellence in Teaching in 2009. At the University of Missouri-Columbia he received the Provost's Outstanding Junior Faculty in 1993 and was named one of 10 recipients of the Kemper Fellowship for Teaching Excellence in 1996.
He holds a B.M. in voice from Illinois Wesleyan University; a M.M. from the University of Oklahoma; and a DMA in choral conducting from the University of Iowa.