Victor Davies

Victor Albert Davies CM is an award winning Canadian composer, pianist, and conductor, best known for his opera Transit of Venus and The Mennonite Piano Concerto.

Davies was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba in 1939. As a child and teenager, he studied the piano and violin, sang in church choirs, played in jazz and rock bands, and took courses with Ronald Gibson and Peggie Sampson at the University of Manitoba. He studied composition at Indiana University where he graduated with a bachelors in music in 1964. Between 1968-70 he led and composed for a 'third stream' jazz ensemble and attended Pierre Boulez's 1969 conducting class in Switzerland.

In 1959 he became organist-choirmaster at Wesley United Church, Winnipeg where he served for many years. He became the music director at the Manitoba Theatre Centre in 1964 and from 1966-1970 he worked as a composer, arranger, and conductor for CBC Radio and television. In 1970 he began to work as a freelance composer and arranger, and in 1977 he moved to Toronto where he still resides. He was president of the Canadian League of Composers 1979-82 and began to sit on the board of directors of SOCAN in 1997. He was honored with an honorary doctorate from the University of Manitoba in 2007. In 2014, he was named a Member of the Order of Canada.

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