Composer

Biography

David Hamilton (b.1955) was, until the end of 2001, Head of Music at Epsom Girls Grammar School (Auckland). He is Deputy Music Director of Auckland Choral. During 1999 he was Composer-in-Residence with the Auckland Philharmonia. He resigned from full-time teaching at the end of 2001 in order to concentrate on composing while maintaining part-time involvement in music education.


In addition to being a composer, he is well-known as a choral conductor, workshop leader and clinician. In 2000 he adjudicated at the Takarazuka International Choral Competition (Japan), and in 2001 participated in the Asia-South Pacific Symposium on Choral Music in Singapore. He returned to Japan in 2003 as an adjudicator, and in 2005 served on the faculty of the Pacific Basin Music Festival in Hawaii. In 2009 he has been invited to adjudicate in Argentina.


He has had works commissioned by major instrumental groups and choirs throughout New Zealand. His particular interest is choral music and his music is particularly popular with school choirs. Works have been performed, published and recorded in a number of places around the world, with commissions from choirs in Japan, England, USA and Finland.


In 2000 “Veni Sancte Spiritus” won first prize in a choral composition competition organised by the University of Bologna, Italy, and in 2005 he took the NUVOVOX Choral Award in the USA with “Deus, Deus meus”. In 2006 he won the Ned Rorem Award for Song Composition (another NUVOVOX competition), and also a competition organised by the New Zealand Flute Society. In 2007 “Hine Raukatauri”, a concerto for flute and chamber orchestra, took 1st prize in the Haifa International Composers Competition (Israel), and a setting of “The Singers” took 2nd place in the Longfellow Chorus Composers Competition (USA).