biography
Photo: Fu
Steph Davis is a marimbist, composer, Africana studies scholar, and cultural activist. Their music engages traditions, epistemologies, and aesthetics from the African diaspora as means for uncovering truthful historiographies, finding creative self-actualization, and reaching for collective liberation.
Hailed by The Washington Post as a "crisp, controlled" performer who “is engaged in deep explorations of acoustic and historical resonance,” Steph tours the U.S. as a marimba soloist and chamber musician. Encompassing African American spirituals, the Black classical tradition, West African gyil music, and contemporary classical music, Steph’s performances push the boundaries of genre while centering African-descended people and cultures. Through their arrangements, Steph has contributed over 20 works by Black composers to the marimba's repertoire, in addition to premiering dozens of works by living composers, including Pamela Z, Avik Chari, Christa Duggan, Damien Geter, Jingmian Gong, Alissa Voth, and Bilin Zheng. A versatile and passionate collaborator, they have performed with noted musicians, dancers, and poets, including Yasmin Williams, Jenny Oliver, and Dzidzor. Steph proudly endorses Marimba One instruments and mallets as a Marimba One Premier Artist. Their current projects include recording their debut solo marimba album and writing a book of marimba arrangements of music from the African diaspora.
As a composer, Steph draws inspiration from African/African American aesthetics, Africana womanist discourse, Black historical events, and bodies of water. Their music has been performed internationally in Canada, the United Arab Emirates, and the United States. They have received commissions from New Works Project, Douglas Anderson School of the Arts, Spectrum Ensemble, Prism Percussion, Modern Marimba, Britton René Collins, Michael Ptacin, and Cameron Denby.
A strong believer in education as a practice of freedom, Steph is a teaching artist with Castle of our Skins and instructor of music theory at the Boston Conservatory. Steph has authored or co-authored several culturally-responsive curricula about Black classical music and has presented performances, masterclasses, and lecture-recitals at the University of Central Florida, University of Massachusetts Amherst, the Center of Mallet Percussion Research at Kutztown University, and the Network for Diversity in Concert Percussion.
Steph has been awarded residencies at the Goethe-Institute Boston, Avaloch Farm Music Institute, and Boston Center for the Arts.They have held fellowships with the Antenna Cloud Farm Experimental Institute and Music for Food. They were semifinalist in the Southern California Marimba International Artist Competition and a finalist in the Boston Conservatory Concerto Competition. Steph's work has been supported by grants from the New England Foundation for the Arts and Massachusetts Cultural Council.
Steph received their Master of Music in marimba performance from Boston Conservatory at Berklee, where they studied with Nancy Zeltsman. They also hold a Bachelor of Music in percussion performance from the Conservatory. Other areas of study include music composition, ethnomusicology, African and African American music/history and Africana philosophy. They are chair of the board at Castle of our Skins.
Steph resides on unceded land of the Neponset band of the Massachusett tribe, bordertown Dorchester, Boston, MA.
