Viktors Bendrups
1925
Conductor, educator
Born in Jelgava on 14 June 1925. Gained his musical education at the Jelgava Teachers’ Institute and the Jelgava People’s Conservatory.
Having escaped from Latvia as a refugee, arrived in Denmark where he founded a Latvian children’s choir in 1946. After moving to Melbourne in Australia, he energetically resumed his musical activities – founding and directing a youth choir in 1957, conducting the Kokle male choir and, since 1959, has spent nigh on half a century conducting the Melbourne Latvian Association’s mixed choir Rota (Ornament), which has been a mainstay of Melbourne’s Latvian social life, giving concerts and complementing innumerable events.
To promote Latvian music, has lectured on musical-scene news for radio broadcasts, lectured at the University of Melbourne, also compiled an anthology Dziesmas Tēvijas sargiem (Songs for Guardians of the Fatherland).
A chief conductor at the XXth All-Latvian Song Festival, as well as numerous exile song festivals and days of song. Awarded a Certificate of Recognition by the Cultural Foundation of the World Federation of Free Latvians (1984) and a Certificate of Acknowledgment of the Australian and New Zealand Latvian Association (1996) for his contribution to the cultivation of Latvian culture in exile.
