David Hier was born and raised in Toronto, Canada, where he studied piano with Bella Asmarian, counterpoint with William Shookhoff, and composition with Larysa Kuzmenko. He received his PhD in Music Theory at the Eastman School of Music, where he studied under Henry Klumpenhouwer and Zachary Bernstein. Prior to joining the faculty at Oklahoma State University, Hier taught at the University of Texas at Austin, William Paterson University of New Jersey, and at the Eastman School of Music, where he was a finalist for the Teaching Assistant Prize.

Hier has lectured on the music of Arnold Schoenberg, Roger Sessions, Max Reger, and Wolfgang Rihm at the Arnold Schoenberg Institute in Vienna, Austria, the European Music Analysis Conference in Strasbourg, France, the Society for Music Theory's annual meeting, and at various regional theory conferences in the US, including the Texas Society for Music Theory, the Music Theory Society of the Mid-Atlantic, and the Music Theory Society of New York State. His articles have appeared in Music Theory Online and Theory & Practice.

Hier is also an active composer whose music has been played in Canada, the United States, and Belgium by ensembles including the Lincoln Trio, the Transmission Ensemble, and the Tetra String Quartet. His Song of the Night for piano trio (2012) placed second in the Sejong Composition Competition and his String Quartet in D (2019) received an honorable mention in the John Eaton Memorial Composition Competition. Recent performances include a Serenade for Flute and Cello (2025) performed by Daniel Ketter and Emlyn Johnson at Miami University and performances and recordings of his Duo Concertante for Violin and Cello, Elegies for Violin and Piano, and Five Pieces for Cello and Piano in Brussels, Belgium.