'An original Australian Musical Trailblazer' - Tommy Tycho OBE AM - Channel 9 - Star-Sound Recording Studios 1992 (Interview - Rod Henshaw Radio 4BC).
Reeves' first organ appointment was as organist for Sydney Hospital Chapel, followed by his first professional engagement as Director of Music at the Garrison Church, Miller's Point, both while he was still at school.
Reeves has performed as an organ recitalist in all the main venues in Australia, including ABC radio broadcasts from the Sydney Town Hall.
[1] From 1963 to 1978, Reeves accompanied the very popular annual Combined Churches' presentations of Handel's Messiah conducted by Richard Thew.
David Reeves has composed music for theatre, stage, concert hall and church, warming particularly to vocal textures in the Cathedral and large Choral traditions, as well as theatrical/jazz styles.
His style is theatrical and filmic, symphonic and homogenous, employing lyrical and linear melodic phrasing with a tendency towards rich orchestration.
His approach to the human voice is similar, reaching out to the full range and tones of the artists and choirs for which he writes.
Reeves has been described as "one of the most brilliant and unique artistic creative forces to originate from Australia" (Meridian Television 2000), through works including the chamber opera Dorian, the Oratorio Becket – The Kiss of Peace, and the musical Seven Little Australians, the very first major home-grown musical box-office success in Australia's theatrical history.
[4] In 1987 the Australian Bicentennial Authority appointed Reeves as composer for the soundtrack to the promotional film for the "Tall Ships" celebration to take place on Sydney Harbour in 1988.
[6][7][8][9][10][11] By now completely based in London, Reeves scored Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray, which was performed on the West End.
In the 2019 Queen's Birthday Honours Reeves was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) for his "service to the performing arts, particularly through music composition".