Ep. 146 - Making Junior High Music Accessible and Appealing - Dan Davison

“In many choirs, the tenors and basses were a minority. The tenors and basses at the middle level are disparate; they’re not like each other in any way. Sometimes there’s a common range of only about a minor third. I made it my goal to see if I could write music for that type of choir. Rule #1: the tenors and basses will have separate parts, and it will be in their range. I thought, ‘why not put altos and basses on the same part, just in octave unison, and do it for the entire song with no exceptions?’ We called it SAB with optional tenor.  Now I’ve got 11 songs out with that voicing.”Dan Davison was the Choir Director at Ballou Junior High in Puyallup, Washington, from 1979 to 2019.  In addition to having taught the four ensembles at the school, he had numerous teaching and mentoring responsibilities.Currently, he sings professionally with Male Ensemble Northwest.Dan was born in 1956 in Sacramento, California, but he has lived in the greater Seattle area since 1965.  Since 1979, he has lived in Puyallup, Washington, with his wife, Cathy, who was also a public school teacher.  He attended public schools in the Bellevue School District and then attended Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, Washington, where he received his Bachelor's degree, studying under Maurice Skones.  He continued his education and received a Master's In Music from Western Washington University, studying with Bruce Pullan.  Dan's tenure as Choir Director at Ballou Junior High School acquainted him well with the complexities of the adolescent voice. His experience ranges from working with treble choirs to tenor-bass choirs to mixed choir, He also worked with vocal jazz ensembles and his Jazz Choir performed at the ACDA Northwest Convention in Seattle in 2010.  Dan is an experienced church choir director and has directed choirs at Western Washington University and Pacific Lutheran University.  Dan also directed the Northwest ACDA Youth Choir (grades 7-9) for the 2014 ACDA Northwest Convention.Dan is a published composer, with numerous works available from Walton Music, BriLee Music, Pavane Publishing, and Anchor Music. Mr. Davison received numerous awards for his role in music education, including the 1996 State Of Washington Christa McAuliffe Educator Of The Year, The Educator Citizen Of The Year in 2010 for Communities In Schools In Puyallup, Washington, and also the "Outstanding Choral Director Award" for 2010 from the Washington chapter of The American Choral Directors Association.To get in touch with Dan, you can email him at [email protected] [email protected] to contact our hosts.Podcast music from Podcast.coPhoto in episode artwork by Trace HudsonLOTL: Queer ConversationWe all crave Queer Conversations. Follow the link to listen.Listen on: Apple Podcasts   Spotify