Encompassing chamber, large ensemble, electronic, electroacoustic, vocal, and film music, David Kirkland Garner's music reconfigures past sounds—from Bach and Schumann to minimalism to blues and bluegrass—into new sonic shapes and directions. He seeks to make time and history audible, particularly through an exploration of archival recordings. Of Garner's first album Dark Holler, released in 2017 by New Focus Recordings, reviewer Kevin Baldwin writes "Garner’s voice as a composer is unmistakable; with a true passion and inspiration of the music of the South, Garner creates an engaging and lively listening experience." Garner's second is the inaugural album on Sourwood Records, which he founded in 2023, called Eight Songs for Steffen Thomas written for a documentary film about the Georgia artist which premiered on Georgia PBS in February 2023. 

Awards received include a Charles Ives Scholarship from the American Academy of Arts & Letters, an ASCAP Young Composer Award, and first prizes in the OSSIA, Red Note, and NACUSA competitions. His music has been performed by the Kronos Quartet, the Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble, Contemporaneous, Invoke string quartet, Ciompi Quartet, Vega Quartet, South Carolina Philharmonic, San Diego Symphony, Locrian Chamber Ensemble, the Wet Ink Ensemble, the Boston New Music Initiative, Mallarmé Chamber Players, and the yMusic ensemble. Garner has published and presented scholarship on topics on the history of the banjo, Cape Breton fiddling, and minimalism. His work with scholars Laurent Dubois and Mary Caton Lingold on Musical Passage, a digital humanities website project which focuses on the earliest transcription/composition of early Afro-diasporic music from 1688 Jamaica, led to a collaborative piece with poet Ishion Hutchinson called Mr Baptiste, which was premiered by the Imani Winds in 2023.

With degrees from Duke University, University of Michigan, and Rice University, Garner is an Associate Professor of Composition and Theory and the Assistant Director of the Southern Exposure New Music Series at the University of South Carolina School of Music.