Presenting District: Umatilla-Morrow
Presenter: Dianne Davies
Program Description: This workshop is to encourage teachers to present repertoire to students as a guide to their own creativity. Dianne’s “Rainforest Animals” were inspired by two Debussy Preludes.
About Dianne Davies: Dianne Davies received a BA in music from Lewis and Clark College with piano emphasis and K-12 music education certification. Since then, Dianne has taught public and private school music and currently focuses on her private piano studio in Beaverton and performing. In 2010 Dianne created and performed her comedy show Dianne Davies Has Fallen Off Her Bench and in 2016, she created, produced, and performed a new show titled Attachments & Detachments–Tragedy to Triumph combining the music of Cascadia Composers, the Northwest Regions chapter of NACUSA (National Association of Composers USA), with dance, live art, and theatre to tell her own transparent story. In 2016, Dianne also began composing pieces for piano students. Since 2018, her student compositions have been performed each year at PSU in the Cascadia sponsored concert, In Good Hands, that connects living composers with young music students. Most recently, in December 2019 she produced another show with all her own compositions and arrangements for Christmas titled Soli Deo Gloria. Dianne created and performed original piano solo pieces, piano solo arrangements of Chopin Nocturnes fused with traditional carols (Romantic Christmas Suite), as well as a violin & piano duet, violin & cello duet, vocal solos and choral works. Again, she collaborated with live dancers and multi-media visual artist Collin Murphy. Dianne chairs the State Composition Celebration Virtual Event. Watch for her monthly column in the OMTA Music News on-line publication and her current performing and composing projects at musiqPOWER.com.