About David
A message from Kitty Vigo
February 2018
“I was very touched and delighted to learn that the new scholarship for young Upper Kiewa Valley music students is to be named after David. I’m not sure how David would have reacted because he was a very modest person who preferred a quiet behind-the-scenes approach.
He started working in music in 1962 when he joined Clifford Hocking to present Barry Humphries’ first ever one man show which toured all over Australia. Melbourne arts angel and presenter Carillo Gantner described Clifford and David as having the perfect partnership consisting of Clifford as the captain with the artistic vision who dined with the passengers, and David as the chief engineer who ensured that the ship’s engines worked at peak performance and as the helmsman who steered it through often heavy financial seas.
David was born in Plymouth in 1943. His wife and daughter Kate joked that how was really a prince because he was born in Flete Castle, 10 miles east of Plymouth where it was safer from German bombing. However, David was always quick to point out that more than 6000 people were born there over three years.
The Hocking Vigo partnership toured over 300 notable artists around Australia and overseas, including: Indian musicians Ali Akbar Khan and Ravi Shankar; guitarists John Williams, Joe Pass, Leo Kottke, Paco Pena, and Stevie Ray Vaughn; jazz performers Stephane Grapelli, Keith Jarrett, Dave Brubeck, Cleo Laine and John Dankworth, Woody Hermann, Herbie Mann, Jacques Loussier, The Beuna Vista Social Club, Stan Getz, Oscar Peterson, and Blossom Dearie.
Other popular performers presented by them included Frida Boccara, Elvis Costello, The Pointer Sisters, Gladys Knight and the Pips, Victor Borge, Arlo Guthrie, Phyllis Diller and the King’s Singers.
They also toured many comedians including: Lenny Henry, Rowan Atkinson, The Goodies, Pam Ayres (who visited Mt Beauty in 1995) and Jasper Carrot.
The Hocking and Vigo partnership was also responsible for launching or showcasing many Australian performers such as Don Burrows and George Golla, Vince Jones, Kate Ceberano, Slim Dusty, Tully, The Sydney Dance Company, and Robyn Archer.
In 2002 David and new business partner Andrew Kay formed the Soweto Gospel Choir. This involved organizing auditions in Soweto of members form local church choirs in collaboration with the local pastor. Within three months the choir recorded their first album and toured Australia. Since then they have won two Grammys and performed with international artists such as U2, Peter Gabriel, Diana Ross and Stevie Wonder.
David also contributed to the arts through being on boards of the Melbourne Comedy Festival and the Melbourne Arts Centre Trust on which he served for seven years.
David loved living in the Kiewa Valley. We built our house here in 1995 and visited each weekend until we moved here permanently here in 2008. He enjoyed skiing and loved the mischief of the twice-weekly over-50’s tennis club games. He also was a regular coffee drinker at the local cafes, whiling away long mornings chatting to friends. He was a gently man who was keen on birdwatching and was proud of the fact that he sighted 93 different bird species from our garden.
It was because David loved the Kiewa Valley that led him to make sizeable monetary contributions to the Mt Beauty and Albury Base Hospitals. David and Andrew also brought the Soweto Gospel choir to Mt Beauty in 2008, donating all proceeds from ticket sales to the local CFAs. This occurred after David decided that while he didn’t feel he was able to volunteer for the CFA, he could make a different kind of contribution to recognize the fantastic work of its volunteers.
In 2011 the Soweto Gospel Choir visited Mt Beauty again and $10 from each ticket sold was donated to the local primary schools. Then, in 2016, the ticket sale proceeds from the concert with the choir held on July 29, just after he died, was donated to the Mt Beauty Neighbourhood House. David encouraged young performers by donating $7000 over several years to the Clifford Hocking Memorial Scholarship which was used to bring young classical performers to the Mt Beauty Music Festival.
The remainder of the money has now been transferred to the new scholarship fund initiated by Fay Mason.”
On March 2018 Andrew Kay brought The Choir of Man – which was voted best show at the 2017 Edinburgh Fringe Festival –
to perform in Mt Beauty in David’s memory.
Once again $10 from each ticket sold was donated to the Mt Beauty Neighbourhood Centre.
~ We are proud that this fund bears the name of David Vigo and believe that this is a fitting way to honour and memorialize a man who has brought so much to the local music scene of the Upper Kiewa Valley, and indeed to Australian music, and to the world. ~
https://performingartscollection.wordpress.com/2016/08/05/celebrating-the-life-of-david-vigo/