JoDee Davis is professor of trombone at the UMKC Conservatory. She is a member of the Trilogy Brass Trio. Davis has served on the faculties of Kent State University and Eastern Washington University. Formerly principal trombone of the Spokane Symphony and second trombone of the Santa Fe Opera, she has also performed with a number of other orchestras including the Akron, Canton, and Youngstown Symphony Orchestras in Ohio, and the Spoleto Festival Orchestra in Charleston, SC, and Spoleto, Italy.
Currently, Davis plays extra trombone with the Kansas City Symphony. She has presented solo recitals and master classes throughout the United States and has performed and given clinics at the International Trombone Festival, the Eastern Trombone Workshop (now the American Trombone Workshop); the Midwest Clinic; and the Ohio, Texas, Kansas, Missouri, Iowa and Illinois Music Educators Conferences. She was a member of the highly acclaimed trombone quartet PRISMA, which performed at the first International Women’s Brass Conference in St. Louis, the Arizona Low Brass Symposium, and International Trombone Festivals in Cleveland, Minneapolis, Las Vegas and Feldkirch, Germany. In 2011, Davis was an adjudicator in the prestigious Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition. In November 2013, she presented a recital and master classes at the Musik Staatliche Hochschule für Musik Trossingen. Davis received a 2017 University of Missouri Research Board grant to commission and record new music for trombone and piano.
Davis’ students hold university positions throughout the United States and in public and private schools throughout the country. The UMKC Trombone Ensemble, under Davis's direction, has won Honorable Mention in the International Trombone Association's Emory Remington Trombone Choir Competition and performed at the 2009 Missouri Music Educators Association Conference. The ensemble has toured twice in the St. Louis area, and in January 2014, performed on a program of the St. Louis Low Brass Collective. Davis received the UMKC Conservatory’s Muriel McBrien Kauffman Excellence in Teaching Award in 2015 and the Kauffman Excellence in Service Award in 2021.
Davis holds the Doctor of Music in brass literature and performance from Indiana University, and the Master of Music in trombone performance and the Bachelor of Music in music education from the University of Northern Iowa. She has two solo recordings on the Albany Records label: In the Moment (2001), and The Voices of Air (2020).
My mission is to assist trombonists in performing at the highest level that they can hear and imagine, through healthy approaches to playing which are based on scientific truths and research.
Goals
To learn how sound is produced on a wind instrument.
To allow the body to work as it is meant to.
To more successfully produce what we can hear.
To learn exercises which help us reach these goals.
To grow through musical experiences and increased understanding.
—JoDee Davis
