David Lawrence is one of the UK's most versatile conductors, working with orchestras, symphony choruses and national youth choirs.  He has been nominated for a Gramophone Award for his conducting, awarded a prestigious ARAM by the Royal Academy of Music, and holds the Guinness World Record for conducting the UK's largest choir.

 

David's work has taken him to Singapore, Colombia, Canada, the United States, India, the United Arab Emirates, throughout Europe, and most often of all to Australia.  His positive and engaging manner makes him a popular guest conductor, and he is an experienced and respected trainer of choral conductors.  With particular experience in the field of contemporary music, David has prepared and conducted premiére performances by Per Nørgård, Pierre Boulez, Iannis Xenakis, Mauricio Kagel, Graham Fitkin, James Wood, Bob Chilcott and others.  As a guest chorusmaster of the Netherlands Radio Choir he has worked with many conductors such as Kenneth Montgomery, Frans Brüggen, and John Adams, and in 2002 working closely with Stockhausen he also conducted this exceptional choir in the German premiére of Scene II from his opera Sontag aus Licht.

 

David has conducted the London Philharmonic Choir, Hallé Choir, London Symphony Chorus, the CBSO Chorus for whom he is an Associate Conductor, and the national youth choirs of Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales. He has directed large scale education projects with the Orchestra of Welsh National Opera, the English Symphony Orchestra, the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, and of course the CBSO.  In 2011 David conducted an award winning performance of Beethoven's 9th Symphony with the Barrier Reef Orchestra in Queensland, and has conducted the CBSO in a massed performance of Carmina Burana, the Orchestra of Opera North with their Inspiration Choir, Vaughan WIlliam’s Sea Symphony for Hull’s City of Culture Festival and the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra and Huddersfield Choral Society for the BBC's Songs of Praise.

 

David is Choral Advisor to Sinfonia Viva with whom he has worked closely since 1998, Musical Director of the Harrogate Choral Society, and is Principal Conductor of the Basel Proms. He directs the London Symphony Orchestra's Community Chorus, and as Principal Conductor of Young Voices, a position he has held for 25 years, directs massed choirs in an annual series of concerts with some choirs incorporating more than 9,000 singers.