An Introduction to David Wilkinson

Ahead of welcoming back David Wilkinson for our Sharing Event this month, we thought it an excellent opportunity to share a little more about David’s passion for singing over the years.

For thirty years, until the pandemic, David Wilkinson actively promoted singing. Whilst still singing professionally in concerts and oratorio, he would form bands and choirs in four primary and four secondary schools, usually simultaneously. Throughout this time, he conducted and ran his local youth choir: Pendle Youth Choir - up to fifty voices.

These choirs were always non-audition, all comers' choirs, as David believes that all people can sing, but, like any skill, some people require a little extra assistance. Usually, people never receive this help, instead, having to wait until they are at a football or rugby match!

David also conducted Accrington Male Voice Choir for twenty years. All the choirs and nearly all the individuals he taught, competed in festivals and concerts, very similar to Sharing Events. The Youth Choir toured constantly to Europe and Western Canada, and performed concerts to pay for these tours. They sang in churches, streets, synagogues, Markets, The Belgium Trenches, our Twin Towns Marl and Creil, and the Cathedrals of Cologne, Eindhoven, Barcelona, St Marks, St Pauls, Montserrat, Canterbury, to name but a few.

David, helped by friends, sponsors Jimba Primary School Choir in Kenya. He went to Mombasa to hear them compete this year. David's late wife Cherry was Kenyan. Whilst in Bangkok he recently assisted with singing at his grandchildren's school. Two of his daughters teach, and five grandchildren live there in Thailand. 

As a "jobbing singer" for over twenty years before this, David, after studying for an AGSM and with Ettore Campogalliani in Italy, sang chorus and many understudies and small parts at Glyndebourne. He sang in eleven operas there, five of which were filmed, and an additional ten operas with Kent Opera, plus five blockbusters Aida, Mastersinger, Dutchman, Fidelio and Götterdämmerung at English National Opera. The conductors who led these included Rattle, Haitink, Pritchard, Braithewaite, Norrington, Goodall and producers included Hall, Miller, Hytner, Hertz, Lavelli.

With smaller touring companies, such as Opera Players, he performed many of the main lyric tenor roles: Rodolpho (twenty times), Alfredo (in three productions), Jose, Ramiro, Vacek, Lensky, Ferrando and many others. 

David is President of KVU Singers with whom he now sings. David is very proud of his student, Jack Bowtell, whom he taught until he attended the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama, back in 20214,  and ten other former students that he knows of, who have chosen to make a living from singing.

David will be returning later this month for our Autumn Sharing Event, for more information please follow the button below.