As Assistant Conductor of the Baton Rouge Symphony and Music Director of the Louisiana Youth Orchestras, David Torns conducts outreach, educational and pops performances. His musical training and diverse background bring youth, enthusiasm and warmth to his performances.

A native of San Diego, his musical studies began at the age of five on the violin. He completed his bachelor’s degree in violin performance at the Blair School of Music at Vanderbilt University and graduate studies in violin and orchestral conducting at West Virginia University. His violin teachers have included Mary Gerard, Cornelia Heard, Laura Kobayashi, Jacques Israelievitch and Vasile Beluska. Conducting teachers have included Robin Fountain, Emelyne Bingham, Lawrence Christianson, Kathleen Shannon, Don Wilcox, and Cyrus Ginwala.

Torns has attended music festivals throughout the country including the Idyllwild School of Music and the Arts, Sewanee Summer Music Festival and the Chautauqua Institution. He was selected as a conducting fellow at both the Conductors Institute of South Carolina and the Conductors Institute at Bard, where he performed in master classes with artists such as Harold Farberman, Marin Alsop, Apo Hsu, Guillermo Figueroa, Karen Deal, Eduardo Navega, Leon Botstein, Donald Portnoy, Samuel Jones, and Paul Vermel.

Selected for the American Symphony Orchestra League’s Donald Thulean Conducting Workshop in Atlanta, he also participated in conducting master classes with James Paul, Robert Spano, and Michael Morgan. In 2009 Torns was selected as a participant in the first Conductors Symposium with the Omaha Symphony, performing in master classes with Thomas Wilkins and Mark Gibson.

Prior to his appointment in Baton Rouge, Torns served as Assistant Conductor of the Symphony of the Mountains, and Music Director of the Symphony of the Mountains Youth Orchestra in Kingsport, Tennessee. His guest conducting engagements have included the Vanderbilt University Symphony, West Virginia University Symphony, the North Carolina School for the Arts Musica Piccola Orchestra, and the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra. The 2009-10 season will bring return engagements with the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra, four performances of the Nutcracker, A Tale From the Bayou with the Baton Rouge Symphony Orchestra and the Baton Rouge Ballet, and several pops and educational concerts.