David Anavitarte, a conductor, singer, and pianist, is chair of the music department at Southwestern Adventist University, where he has served as director of choral activities since 1991. Prior to coming to SWAU, he taught music at Adelphian and San Diego academies. In addition to his primary identity as chair and conductor, Anavitarte is a singer who accompanies himself in an improvisational style.

A dynamic and charismatic person, he inspires his students to achieve at a high level. In each of the schools he has taught, he has developed a flourishing choral program that presents an eclectic mix of both serious traditional and contemporary sacred choral music.

Six years after he arrived at Southwestern Adventist College, now University, Anavitarte formed the University Singers, a select group of 20 to 30 students, and Asaph, a male chorus of 16, to complement the larger 100-member traditional choir, Mizpah Choraliers. In both of the mixed choirs he has presented masterpieces in choral literature such as the Elijah, the Mozart and Rutter Requiems, and other choral masterpieces.

He also formed the Brazos Chamber Orchestra in 1997, an independent professional ensemble of 45 to 50 that, in addition to accompanying the choirs in giving major choral works, gives two to three concerts annually featuring a wide variety of music, from symphonic literature to Broadway musicals.

In 2001, Anavitarte became chair of the music department. In his seven years of leadership, he has successfully taken the department through uncertain times, weathering difficulties arising from university leadership that failed to see the value of supporting a music degree program. Beginning in 2006 with the appointment of a totally supportive president, Anavitarte has been able to rebuild a music department that now offers a comprehensive music education program with depth and qualified specialists as teachers.

He began study on piano at age seven. His mother, who had taken voice lessons from a member of the Philadelphia Opera chorus, loved music and would take her son at age seven and eight to dress rehearsals of the opera at the Philadelphia Academy of Music. He remembers spending a lot of time at the academy of music as a child.

He attended Blue Mountain Academy in his junior and senior years, studying voice with and singing in the school's choirs under Larry Karpenko. While attending BMA, he roomed with noted choral conductor Paul Hill's son, Roger. Through this relationship, he became acquainted with the Hill family and during academy breaks would travel with Roger to Washington, D.C., where they would sing under Paul's direction, an opportunity recalled by Anavitarte as a totally inspiring experience.

He attended Columbia Union College in Washington, where he continued voice study with Larry Otto, Jon Gilbertson, and Robert Young. He also studied piano with Neil Tilkens, living with the Tilkens family during three of his five years at CUC. Following graduation from CUC with a B.S. in music education in 1982, Anavitarte accepted a position at Adelphian Academy in Michigan, where he taught until 1986.

He continued study at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, completing a master's degree in choral conducting in 1989. That fall he began teaching at San Diego Academy, where he worked until he became director of the choral program at SWAC two years later. In his time at the university, he has completed all class work for a doctorate in music at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.

Anavitarte studied conducting with Jon Robertson, Ray Robinson, Daryl One, and Paul Salamunovich. He has studied with Salamunovich for several years and continues to do so, regarding him as the teacher who has had the greatest influence on his career.

Anavitarte is married to Katherine Baker. They have two children, Donielle, who is graduating this year from SWAU with an RN degree, and Devin, who is a junior English major at SWAU.

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