Getting to Know David Kuhnke

My music “career” started while growing up in Vancouver, as a very active 5yr old listening to Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov (Scheherazade), Franz von Suppe (Light Cavalry Overture) and Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (The Nutcracker) on our 78 record player, my parent’s “electronic babysitter”. When LP’s first came out, I bought and listened to early LP samplers, folk, pop, rock & roll, and also classical music.

My piano lessons started at age 6. I played in elementary school music programs, because I could read music and play keyboards. My singing began then too because I goofed off at the back of music class and the teacher made me sit on the floor beside the piano. She could hear me sing…and the rest is history.

I took music in high school, but only played for classroom rehearsals. There was another student that played so much better than I did that she was chosen to play in the actual concerts. In the early 60’s, I started to sing in church choirs at Ryerson United with Hugh McLean.

In 1970, after getting an Engineering degree from UBC, I moved to Ontario. Although performing music took a breather for several years, I enjoyed listening to music from the 8-track in my ’68 Mustang, roaring up and down the Ottawa Valley (near Deep River).

By the late ’70’s, I had moved to Ontario (Willowdale, North York) and rejoined church choirs. In 1983, I moved “out west” to Oakville and, in addition to church choirs, was introduced to community choirs starting with Mississauga Choral Society. I also took singing lessons in Pt. Credit, practicing every tenor solo in Handel’s Messiah. Since then, I have sung in community choirs with orchestras in Hamilton, Toronto, Windsor and Oakville, and now Cobourg.

Yes, I have sung for Presidents and Royalty. While with the Mississauga Choral Society, I sang for Prince Andrew and Sarah, the Duke & Duchess of York who were opening the new Mississauga City Hall in July 1987, and with the Bach-Elgar Choir in Hamilton Place for a former US President (Ronald Regan?) who visited Hamilton in the early ‘90’s.

At the Queen’s Royal Golden (50th) Jubilee in Canada in 2003 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Jubilee_of_Elizabeth_II, I learned that “Happy Birthday” is still protected by copyright.

“Finally, the royal couple were in the audience at Roy Thomson Hall for a gala concert of Canadian talent, including Oscar Peterson, Evelyn Hart, Rex Harrington, Cirque du Soleil, The Tragically Hip, and others.[15] Oct 20, 2003.”

For a period of time in Oakville/Burlington, I took organ lessons. After getting an MBA at UofT, I had the idea of going back to school for a Music Degree and writing church choral music. The plan was to get a Mus. Bac. with Organ Performance and Church Music option. Unfortunately, “Plan A” didn’t work out, even after buying a full-size Allen digital organ so I could practice at home. Worse than that, I had to sell it before moving to Cobourg.

We moved from Burlington to Cobourg summer of 2017 and I knew I wanted to get back into singing. I saw an ad for Northumberland Orchestra & Choir in one of the “Welcome to Cobourg” magazines you get from realtors. I thought, I can do that! After attending an NOC concert on a Saturday in Oct 2017, I checked out Trinity United Church on Sunday (I had sung in United church choirs for decades), came to NOC choir rehearsal on Tuesday with my “choral resume” in hand, attended Trinity Church choir practice on Thursday, sang in the church choir Sunday morning and NOC’s Christmas concert later in that year.

Because of my experience working with email lists using the MailChimp program, I offered to help with the NOC newsletter. I haven’t crawled out of that rabbit hole yet! In 2018, I was invited to join the NOC Board.

Other areas of interest are electric vehicles (Chapter Lead, EV Society-Northumberland), the environment & sustainability as a Board member of Sustainable Cobourg, playing pickleball, gardening, and family with 4 grandchildren attached…to be returned to their rightful owners at the end of the weekend.