Dan Davis – percussion

Dan DavisDan Davis – B.M. 1989 – Music Education/Percussion – East Carolina University; M.M. 2012 – Jazz Studies/Performance – North Carolina Central University.  Drumset studies with David Via, Keith Copeland, and Thomas Taylor.  Percussion studies with Massie Johnson (UNC – School of the Arts), Harold Jones, and Mark Ford (ECU).

In 1984, Dan received the A.J. Fletcher music scholarship to study percussion at East Carolina University.  He was the 1987 M.T.N.A.-Wurlitzer competition national winner in percussion and in 1988, won the E.C.U. concerto competition performing Paul Creston’s, Concertino for Marimba (3rd mvt.) with the E.C.U. symphony Orchestra.  In 1989, Dan received the Farmville Friends scholarship.   

Dan moved to the Raleigh/Durham/Chapel Hill area in 1990 and began a long association with many of the finest musicians in the region.  He is an active educator and clinician. From 2002-2005, Dan was a band director at the Durham School of the Arts in Durham, N.C., receiving the Claus Nobel educator of distinction award in 2005.           

Currently, he maintains a full schedule of students and performs in many different styles of music.  He is an adjunct professor of Jazz drumset, Jazz history, and directs Jazz combo/Jazz ensemble at UNC-Chapel Hill and East Carolina University.  Dan has performed with artists Joe Chambers, John Abercrombie, Paul Jeffrey, Claudio Roditi, Conrad Herwig, Walter Smith 3rd, Corey Wilcox, Eric Alexander, Ben Allison, Gary Smulyan, Lynn Seaton, Jeb Patton, Will McFarland, and many other local and regional musicians.