Musical Director of Farnham Youth Choir
and Conductor of Farnham Junior Boys’ Choir
and Conductor of Farnham Junior Boys’ Choir
David Victor-Smith MBE
Introduced by Howard Goodall on BBC television in 2006 as 'The legendary David Victor-Smith', it is David's expertise at honing a group of young singers to achieve the highest standards that has earned him the reputation as being at the vanguard of youth choral singing. This consistency of excellence despite an ever changing personnel (a hallmark of youth choirs) marked him out for honour by the Queen with an MBE in 1997 for services to Farnham Youth Choir.
A prize-winner at the Royal College of Music, London, David studied organ playing and conducting. He then entered the teaching profession and enjoyed a career of some thirty years teaching in all sectors of State Education from Primary to Sixth Form. Concurrently with academic teaching, however, his commitment to and love of choral music brought his school choirs, parish church choirs, and community groups to national acclaim. Together with his wife, Gillian, he founded Farnham Youth Choir in 1984.
Now, David works as a freelance musician, leading workshops, adjudicating at national and international competitions, and lecturing on choral singing. He has worked closely with leading composers such as John Rutter, Sir Peter Maxwell Davies and Jonathan Dove to premier their works for children's voices, and, with Farnham Youth Choir, has made six recordings to date.
He is an active member of the Association of British Choral Directors, a regular guest conductor at the National Youth Choirs' Boys' Choir courses across the country, and was invited in January 2007 to Brisbane, as international guest conductor to Gondwana Voices, Australia's national Children's Choir.
David Victor-Smith’s mission
"The wonderful thing about working with young people's voices is that they are, largely speaking, untrained! Like a blank canvas is to an artist, so an un-trained voice allows me to blend and balance, to colour and shape. Yes, our singers need to know how to breathe properly, how to use their lips to create good diction, how to stand correctly, how to improve their sight-reading, and also to look as if they are thoroughly engaged personally in the text, but all that is eminently teachable as part of the choir rehearsals. My job is to make the corporate sound beautiful to the ear whilst at the same time to equip the individual singers with the skills that will enable them to enjoy a life-time of music-making in whatever genre they eventually choose. My satisfaction comes from instilling a joy of choral singing in young people, and also in introducing them to a wide range of high quality music that will both challenge and inspire."