David Zafer

In England, he studied with his father and at the RCM with Antonio Brosa. He moved to Canada in 1947 and continued his studies in Toronto with Elie Spivak and Albert Pratz. He was a member 1956-9 of the TSO, assistant concertmaster 1960-1 of the Baltimore SO, member 1955-60 and 1961-8 and concertmaster 1968-71 of the Hart House Orchestra, and concertmaster 1961-4 of the orchestra of the National Ballet of Canada. A teacher at the University of Toronto beginning in 1966, with the NYO 1967-73, at the Banff SFA 1974-82, and at the Courtenay Youth Music Centre beginning in 1982, he has numbered among his pupils Joan Barrett, Richard Green, John Lowry, and Rhyll Peel. Zafer gave master classes at the Menuhin School, Surrey, England, in the summer of 1977 and became a string coach and conductor for the Toronto Symphony Youth Orchestra in 1978. He began to teach at the RCMT in 1987, and at the Southern Ontario Chamber Music Institute in Ancaster, Ontario in 1989. At the University of Toronto, where he continued to teach in 1991, he also has conducted the student chamber orchestra.