Conductor Emeritus:
David Fisher

David Fisher was born in Northumberland and educated in Leicester. A chorister at Leicester Cathedral under George Gray, he had his first composition lessons with Dr Gray at the age of eleven. He studied music at Durham University, where he trained as a teacher, and he is currently Head of the Performing Arts Faculty at a Leicestershire college. He holds a Master of Music degree in composition and is working on his PhD portfolio.

A member of the British Academy of Composers and Songwriters and Chairman of Central Composers’ Alliance, his output is mainly choral and includes Mary Laid Her Child which was premièred and performed worldwide by the Vienna Boys Choir and released on CD in 1999.  Ave Regina caelorum was released on disc by Lincoln Cathedral Choir (which has since been remastered and re-released by Priory Records in 2007) and The Litanie won David Fisher the Northern Sinfonia Young Composer Award and it was subsequently recorded for the British Council by the Burrow’s Choir. 

His Mass to the Trinity has had many performances following its successful première of the “Gloria” with the Leicestershire Chorale under Paul McCreesh. Laudate Dominum, a major cantata for one of the world’s leading sopranos, commissioned by East Midlands Arts for Dame Emma Kirkby, Derby Choral Union and an authentic classical orchestra has had three performances at Derby and two in Leicester by the Leicester Bach Choir. A future performance is planned for June 2009.  His three Farnham Festival commissions, Aspects of Time, All is well & Let us build for ever (all originally directed by Richard Stevens) are substantial works for children, some of which have been performed at the Three Choirs’ Festival and by groups such as the Leicester Bach Choir and Kingfisher Chorale. Projected works include a fourth commission for the Farnham Festival in 2009. Instrumental works include Congissima, commissioned by and performed on Central TV, Trialogue for violin, clarinet and piano and The Four Seasons for solo piano, both of which were released on CD in 2002, were performed by Julian Hellaby and others. His largest work to date is Requiem, commissioned by Daventry Choral Society and performed to great acclaim by them in 2001 with a subsequent performance by Derby Choral Union.
Two recent works include Augsburg Elegy for Joachim Diessner which was premièred in Bavaria in 2004 and The Tiffany Anthem which was commissioned to commemorate the rebuild of Leicester Cathedral’s organ and was first performed by the cathedral choirs of Leicester, Derby and Coventry. There have been subsequent performances in those cathedrals and in Germany too with projected performances America. The anthem was performed at St Paul’s Cathedral, London, in May 2007, and it is scheduled to be performed to the Archbishop of Canterbury in August 2009 and also at the De Montfort Hall, Leicester, in 2010 with a huge choir in a concert for Youth Finds A Voice conducted by Tom Williams.

In 2006, David Fisher directed the world première recording of Malcolm Arnold’s John Clare Cantata with Kingfisher Chorale and the pianists Peter Noke and Julian Hellaby. David Fisher also conducted Derby Choral Union for ten seasons and took the choir to its pre-eminent position as one of the leading choirs of the region with a wide repertoire of mainstream choral works and rare performances of little known pieces such as Rossini’s Messa di Gloria and Puccini’s Requiem as well as performing world premières such as the magnificent oratorio Song of Creation by Will Todd (for two orchestras, three choirs, three soloists & organ) and the brass band & choir carol Ring out Wild Bells by Robert Ramskill. As well as the Leicester Bach Choir, David Fisher has conducted other choirs and orchestras on the Continent, most recently with Emma Kirkby, James Gilchrist and Alan Ewing in Augsburg with the Batzdorfer Hofcapelle Orchester and the Michaelsteiner Kammerchor.