David Foster returns to Victoria for a milestone celebration
“Victoria is my birthplace. Victoria is my roots, and Victoria has given so much to my foundation,” David Foster says.
By Shawn Conner
Last updated 8 hours ago
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A coffee, a back rub, a drive to the beach — if it helped a singer deliver the performance he knew they had in them, David Foster would find a way.
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“I’ll do anything,” Foster says from Los Angeles. “I just want to get a great vocal. I want to get a better vocal out of you than anybody ever has, or anybody ever will.”
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One of the most successful producers of the modern pop era, Foster’s credits range from Earth, Wind & Fire, Chicago and Hall & Oates to Whitney Houston, Céline Dion, Madonna, Michael Bublé and Josh Groban. He’s still active; one of his recent projects was writing the music for Boop! The Musical, based on the animated character Betty Boop.
This month, he’s marking the 40th anniversary of the David Foster Foundation with a star-studded lineup in his hometown of Victoria.
The celebration begins Aug. 7 with a black-tie gala and concert at the Victoria Conference Centre. On Aug. 8, Foster and friends will perform a free public concert in the Inner Harbour, accompanied by the Victoria Symphony. Announced performers include Foster, his wife Katharine McPhee, CeeLo Green, Groban, The Tenors and Jay Leno, among others.
The seeds for the Foundation were planted when Foster’s mom alerted him to a story about a five-year-old Victoria girl who was in L.A. awaiting a liver transplant. At the time, Canadian families often had to travel to the U.S. for pediatric liver transplants. A 1992 federal report noted that “no Canadian centre performed liver transplants on children before 1985.”
“My mother called me and said, ‘You need to go visit her,’ ” Foster recalls. “Of course, you do what your mother says.”
When he asked the girl what she wanted most, she said she wanted to see her sister. A flight from Victoria to L.A. then cost about $60.
“I thought, ‘For the price of a $60 airline ticket, I can make this girl’s dream come true. I can afford that.’ ”
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What began with assistance to Victoria families gradually expanded across B.C. and then eastward. The Foundation now provides financial support to Canadian families with children undergoing major organ transplants and says it has assisted more than 1,600 families.
“Our mandate hasn’t changed much,” Foster says. “We’ve broadened it.”
The need can continue for weeks, months or years, and the outcome isn’t always a happy one.
“It’s hell,” Foster says. “We are the only bright light in a family’s worst day — their darkest day.”
He’s particularly conscious of the healthy siblings who can become almost invisible while a family focuses its energy on keeping another child alive.
“Quite often, I’ll walk into the room and see the siblings off in a corner somewhere,” he says. “I love talking to them, because they have to be pushed into the background in order for the sick child to survive.”
The Foundation has held fundraising events across Canada and in L.A., headlined by the kinds of heavy-hitters only someone of Foster’s deep industry ties could assemble. At a Hollywood Bowl event marking his 75th birthday in 2024, Foster says the organization raised US$19 million over the weekend.
Four decades after the first fundraiser, he admits both he and some of those friends are tired of the asking. But bringing the anniversary celebration back to Victoria has a special significance.
“Victoria is my birthplace. Victoria is my roots, and Victoria has given so much to my Foundation,” he says. “In the first few years, we relied solely on raising money in Victoria. Victoria bore the brunt of it, and they did it like champs. This is a small payback for the city that has given us so much.”
