David Kates is a composer of Disney, music library, and trailer music projects who has recently entered the game music industry. After completing a film composition program at UCLA, he started his career scoring orchestral music for Disney documentaries and animated videos such as Sing Me A Story With Belle. He also composed numerous trailers for high-profile films like Jerry Maguire and offered additional underscore for A Very Brady Sequel. He has also developed an ever-expanding music library for Pump Audio that has been used without credit on television projects such as Battle Galactica.

In 2002, he composed his favourite project to date, the oriental animation Tales from the Ramayana. The production's video game influences inspired Kates to check out the scores for the Myst and Halo series for the first time. This gave him respect for the thematic focus and artistic potential of video game music. Curious about exploring new frontiers, he contacted Jack Wall about working with him on some video game projects. Scoring ten cues on Neopets: The Darkest Fairie gave him an opportunity to explore his music through a new medium and still use his skills as a symphonic dramatist.

Kates was recently asked to transcribe and orchestrate three movements of Disney's Tron for Video Games Live. After a month of preparations, he felt a great sense of accomplishment hearing the segment performed at the Hollywood Bowl and featured in the Video Games Live CD. Late into its production, Wall also asked Kates to score 15 minutes of cinematic music for the Mass Effect over a three week period. Now represented by Four Bars Intertainment, Kates would like to dedicate more time to scoring video game music in future. He will co-composer Battlestations: Pacific has expressed interest in returning to Mass Effect 2.