Bio

Ronald Davis joined the music faculty as Professor of Tuba and Euphonium in 1985 and is currently principal tuba with the South Carolina Philharmonic and the Aiken Symphony Orchestra.

Dr. Davis was born and raised in Los Angeles, California. He earned his doctoral degree in tuba performance from the University of Southern California, and also holds degrees from California State University–Fullerton and Bowling Green State University. His major teachers were Jim Self, Tommy Johnson, Roger Bobo, Ivan Hammond and Ronald Bishop.

As an orchestral player Dr. Davis has performed with the Augusta Symphony Orchestra, the Santa Barbara Symphony, the Los Angeles Master Chorale and Sinfonia Orchestra under Roger Wagner, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and the Charleston and Charlotte Symphonies. In 1991 as a guest soloist with the South Carolina Philharmonic Orchestra he performed the South Carolina premiere of the Concerto for Bass Tuba and Orchestra by Ralph Vaughan Williams.

Dr. Davis has a varied background as a free-lance musician, including being a founding member of the first professional tuba quartet to play at Disneyland, The Tubadours. The group capped its early years by winning television's The Gong Show. He was an original cast member of the Pioneer Hall Hoop-Dee-Doo Revue at Walt Disney World, Florida (playing the banjo) and also performed regularly at California’s Knott's Berry Farm and Ghost Town, Six Flags Magic Mountain and Universal Studios Tours–Hollywood. Dr. Davis served as an adjunct instructor/lecturer at California Lutheran College, California State University–Fullerton, and as member of the Faculty Brass Quintet at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Just prior to coming to South Carolina he served a one-year appointment as Visiting Assistant Professor of Tuba, Euphonium and Band at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

He gained a reputation as a scholar through his regular reviews and articles in the ITEA Journal published by the International Tuba/Euphonium Association. In 1991, R. Winston Morris of Tennessee Technological University conceived The Tuba Source Book project to assemble the most complete single volume devoted to one musical instrument. Winston personally recruited Dr. Davis to assemble the discography chapter. Indiana University Press published The Tuba Source Book in 1993. Ten years later Dr. Davis revised and enlarged the discography, which was published in The New Tuba Source Book: Guide to the Tuba Repertoire, released in fall 2006.

Dr. Davis has been a featured soloist and clinician at International Tuba/Euphonium Conferences in Austin, Minneapolis and Tucson, the International Euphonium Tuba Festival at Emory University in Atlanta, and at Southeastern Regional Tuba/Euphonium Conferences at the North Carolina School of the Arts, University of Tennessee University–Knoxville and the University of Alabama–Tuscaloosa.