David Banney was born in Brisbane, Australia, and is the Director of Music at Christ Church Cathedral, Newcastle, the Artistic Director of the Christ Church Camerata, and was the founding director of the Newcastle Music Festival. A past winner of the ABC Australian Young Conductor of the Year Award, David has conducted many of Australia's leading orchestras and ensembles, including the Queensland Symphony, Queensland Philharmonic, Opera Queensland, West Australian Symphony, Adelaide Symphony and Canberra Symphony. He has worked as conductor or chamber musician with soloists including Roger Woodward, Tamara Anna Cislowska, Kathryn Selby, Andrea Lam  and Simon Tedeschi (piano), Susan Collins and Tor Fromhyr (violin), Andrew Blanch (guitar), Sally Walker (flute), singers Deborah Humble, Christopher Allan, Grace Knight and Deborah Conway, and William Barton (didgeridoo). His teachers have included Vernon Handley (conducting) and Patricia Pollett (viola).

As a composer, David won the ABC Young Composers Competition, and his output includes chamber music, choral music, orchestral music and scores for documentary films. His music has been performed by artists including Susan Collins (violin), Anthea Scott-Mitchell (cello), the Adelaide and Queensland Symphony Orchestras, the NSW Doctors Orchestra, the Choir of Christ Church Cathedral and the Christ Church Camerata. His arrangement of Bruch's Double Concerto was performed by Antony McGill (NYPO) at the 2023 La Jolla Summerfest.

As an educator, David has enjoyed a long association with Géza Szilvay, the creator of the Colourstrings curriculum. David has taught at many levels, from primary school to postgraduate level, and has composed a large body of music for young players based on the Kodály approach to music education. With ABC radio journalist Paul Bevan, David presented more than three hundred episodes of Banney's Baton Banter - a weekly chat about music and life on ABC1233. David devised 'Tigers and Teapots: Songs for Children' - a collection of children's songs arranged for choir and strings, which has been performed throughout Australia, and has become a staple of the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra's education program. 

As a researcher, David has published papers and spoken at numerous conferences on two subject areas - symmetry breaking in music and Kodály-based music education in the Australian context.