Beverly Fyfe

Beverly Fyfe

Beverly (Couper) Fyfe. Choir conductor, tenor, b Neepawa, near Winnipeg, of Scottish parents, 13 Oct 1909. His father was a choirmaster in Saskatoon and conducted the Arion Male Voice Choir in Victoria. Fyfe attended the Hambourg Conservatory in Toronto on a voice scholarship and also studied in Washington State and California. His voice teachers were Mme Varty Roberts, Clement Q. Williams, and John Goss. After touring in the USA as a conductor of musical comedy Fyfe joined TUTS as a leading tenor in 1941 and became music director in 1945. He was the tenor soloist in the premiere, 3 Mar 1954, of Pentland'sThe Lake with the CBC Vancouver Chamber Orchestra. In 1961 he became chorusmaster and a music director of the Vancouver Opera. In 1962 in Victoria he directed the Starlight Theatre and conducted Haydn's The Creation. For the 1964 Vancouver International Festival he prepared the choruses in The Damnation of Faust for the visiting conductor Charles Munch and also prepared West Side Story. As the chorusmaster 1965-8 of the Vancouver Bach Choir he prepared the War Requiem and Belshazzar's Feast for Meredith Davies and the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra. In 1990 Fyfe celebrated 30 years as chorusmaster for the Vancouver Opera Association.During this period he developed a secure technique and a personal philosophy for training an opera chorus. His method involves enabling each chorus member to perform as an individual so that you get the realism in reaction to a situation that opera is looking for today'. Soloists who have emerged from the Vancouver Opera Association chorus include Judith Forst, Lynn Vernon and Richard Margison.