Doug Davis

Doug Davis graduated summa cum laude from the University of Tennessee where he studied with David Van Vactor and completed his Ph.D. from Harvard University working with Earl Kim and Leon Kirchner. While at Harvard, Leonard Bernstein selected Davis to be a member of the Norton Lectures Discussion Group. Several of his compositions have been recorded by jazz greats including Chick Corea and Bennie Wallace. During his tenure at California State University Bakersfield, Davis was selected the outstanding professor, served as department chairman, and created multiple concert series of Guest Composers, the Bakersfield Jazz Festival and Legends of Jazz concerts. In 2003, he received the WANG Family Excellence Award that was given to four faculty members chosen from the 23-campus CSU system. International performances include “Psalm of an Orange Angel” by the Hungarian Symphony and “Token” for voice and orchestra, featured at the Ukrainian “Contrasts” festival. Concerning his Berryman Dream Songs, LA Weekly’s Brandt Reiter states, "Bluesy, playful and malevolent, with strong overtones of Bartók and Berg, the music is jarring, creepy and slyly seductive. And the disc, which I find compulsively listenable, is both appropriately unsettling and a hell of a lot of fun."