David Aaron Carpenter (born April 5, 1986 in Great Neck, New York) is a US-American violist and was the first Prize Winner of the 2006 Walter W. Naumburg Viola Competition. Born into a family of musical siblings, David began studying the violin at the age of six under the Suzuki method.[1] At 12, he embarked upon learning the viola and by age 16, the viola became his primary instrument. He continued to pursue both instruments at the pre-college divisions of Juilliard School and the Manhattan School of Music, Italy’s Accademia Chigiana, Switzerland’s International Music Academy, and the Verbier Festival Academy, studying with Pinchas Zukerman, Roberto Diaz, Seiji Ozawa, Robert Mann, Nobuko Imai, Boris Belkin, and Yuri Bashmet.