Dr David Skinner is a British musicologist and choir director. He is Director of Music at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge. He co-founded the Cardinall's Musick and Magdala.
Skinner was educated at the University of Edinburgh and Christ Church, Oxford from where he received his DPhil in 1995: a biography of Nicholas Ludford and a critical edition of Ludford's antiphons. He has taught at the universities of Oxford, Glasgow, Cambridge and Royal Holloway College. He was a member of Christ Church Cathedral choir for six years, as an academical clerk and a lay clerk.
David is the father of singer-songwriter Robin Daniel Skinner, known as Cavetown on YouTube, where he has over 1,000,000 subscribers. Robin posts his music on Bandcamp, Spotify, iTunes, Amazon Music and so on.
He grew up in America.
With Andrew Carwood he was co-founder and artistic director of the Cardinall's Musick, and produced more than 25 recordings for the group. He has been associated with a number of award-winning projects (including two Gramophone Awards and three runners up, Diapason d'Or, Deutsche Schallplatten, and a Grammy nomination).
His latest consort choir, Alamire, was founded in 2005. With Fretwork and the Choir of Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, it won the 'Recording of the Month' award in Gramophone Magazine, for February 2008. In 2011 David Skinner and Alamire commenced a ten-year 30-cd programme to explore English choral music between 1400 and the mid-17th century.
He received a 2015 Gramophone Award for Alamire's recording of The Spy's Choirbook, while their latest project, Anne Boleyn's Songbook won Australia's Limelight Award and was nominated for a BBC Music Magazine Award. Their next project is on Thomas Tallis and Henry VIII's last queen, Catherine Parr.