Performer Biography
Victor Davies
Born in Winnipeg, Victor Davies attended the University of Manitoba, Indiana University, and studied conducting with Pierre Boulez. During his career as a composer, pianist and conductor, he has created works for MTC, the WSO, Contemporary Dancers and RWB, and has written film scores for dramas and documentaries for CBC, CTV, the NFB and many independent producers.
He has composed and performed with his own jazz group and wrote the first major score for a planetarium production, The Beginning and End of the World, recorded with Skitch Henderson. Davies’ best-known work, The Mennonite Piano Concerto, commissioned by Winnipeg's Fast Foundation, was recorded by the London Symphony Orchestra with pianist Irmgard Baerg and conductor Boris Brott.
His music ranges from children’s songs - he wrote music and lyrics for over 500 songs for the CTV (CKY) series Let’s Go! and The Rockets - to his major oratorio Revelation for soloists, large chorus and orchestra.
His theatre works include Beowulf (a rock opera), staged in New York; the musical Especially Babe for the Toronto Theatre Festival; The Musical Circus, performed at the Zagreb Biennial; The Big Top, commissioned by the Royal Winnipeg Ballet (with 50 performances and TV special seen world wide); the theme song Colours in the Dark, for Famous People Player’s Broadway show and American tours; and scores for the international award-winning films The Last Winter (Fox Video), The Nutcracker Prince (Warner Bros), and For the Moment (20th Century Fox).
Davies has conducted the Winnipeg, Edmonton and Kitchener-Waterloo symphony orchestras and has been the conductor of his own film and television scores. He was musical director and composer for the Opening and Closing Ceremonies of the 1999 Pan American Games.
Davies’ music, aimed at a wide audience, is melodic, brilliantly orchestrated and has a sense of drama. Equally at home in the concert hall, theatre or recording studio, his music is heard around the world, live, via recordings, film and television (he won a Gemini Award for best documentary score in 2002), and is sought after by artists such as Wayne Marshall, Bramwell Tovey, The Boss Brass, Ofra Harnoy and the Canadian Trio.
This past year he completed a comic opera based on The Importance of Being Earnest which was performed at Stratford Summer Music, and his piano trio, Silhouettes was performed at Carnegie Hall with players of the Philadelphia Orchestra. A CD of The Big Top (A Circus Ballet) with the WSO has just been released. He is currently working on two musicals, an overture for orchestra, and a tuba concerto.
Opera Carolina Performances:
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