by Monica Chamness
Staff Writer
From his post as the band and orchestra director for the Walt Disney World Resort, Michael Davis dreamed of conducting the St. Johns River City Band.
Now the dream is a reality.
“I’ve had my eye on this for a long time,” said Davis, who retired from Disney and was hired as the new River City Band music director last month. “The past directors are impressive enough. The thing about brass bands, historically, is that there were more then than there are now. There are only two bands like this in the country. The other one is in Pittsburgh. There are a lot of symphony orchestras and commercial brass bands but they’re not really professional bands [i.e. the musicians are paid] that do a concert series, are non-profit and are run by a board of directors.”
Davis will conduct the River City Brass Band, River City Big Band and River City Youth Wind Band, though he won’t be moving to Jacksonville because his wife is a tenured school teacher in Orange County.
One of the main changes Davis will make is implementing the reorganization of the band. An advisory board of community leaders and band members has been formed to better reflect the wishes of area residents and to illicit input from the players.
“We want to get creative with the programming,” he said. “We want to build our audience with things that interest an audience and with good quality music. We want to know what people want to hear so we can organize a concert series.”
Crossing cultural and age divisions is part of his plan.
Davis brings an appreciation of music from theoretical and practical perspectives to his new position. In addition to his 25 years of conducting experience, he has a long history of involvement with academics. While at Disney, he functioned as manager of atmosphere talent and education programs, developing workshops, show concepts, audition processes and operational procedures for Disney’s Collegiate All-Star Band and Orchestra ensembles. He was also employed as director of bands and percussion at James Madison University, as band director/percussion instructor at the University of Wisconsin and has taught band, orchestra and chorus from the elementary to the high school level. He remains active with Disney as a contract conductor, music director and consultant.
“An area we want to go into is serving the community with educational programs,” he said. “This will be the springboard to increase awareness of live performances. It’s another idiom of the arts. We have ballet, symphony and now wind instruments. We want to be the thing kids listen to, the flagship they can benchmark off of. I want to wave the banner of the performing arts.”
The River City Band’s new program director, Christopher Heacox, concurs with Davis.
“We want to reach as many students as possible with all styles of music,” said Heacox.
“We will partner with other arts organizations to promote the arts in Jacksonville as a whole.”
A Jacksonville native, Heacox will assume marketing and some directing roles. With a background in music education, he will coordinate educational initiatives in the Duval County School System, in addition to booking gigs for the ensemble groups, conducting the River City Youth Jazz and River City Satin Swing Band and promoting the band internationally. Heacox received his master’s degree in jazz and contemporary media from the Eastman School of Music in Rochester and learned the more basic music concepts at Florida State University.
“Educationally, we’re developing outreach programs for students and seniors,” he said. “We want to get more involved in the community that way. We are working on a state touring grant that will take the arts into rural communities. The organization will be moving into the 21st Century with websites and virtual work space, too.”
Other changes on the horizon include coordinating the different ensembles under one umbrella, reevaluating the worth and membership of the administration and tooling methods to effectively use funds with the goal of promoting more performances of larger ensembles.
Heacox also teaches at Stetson University, the University of North Florida and Daytona Beach Community College. Locally, he has taught at Douglas Anderson School of the Arts, LaVilla School of the Arts and Mandarin High School.
On Oct. 24 and 26, Davis and Heacox will be interviewing current and potential adult band members to gauge the area’s talent pool.
“We want to interview, not audition, musicians so we can figure out what they’re like,” explained Davis.
The interview process will be open to any professional musician. Youth auditions will be held in January.
“There’s great opportunity here, not only for Jacksonville,” said Davis. “They’re not just the band of Jacksonville — it’s the band of Florida. My immediate goal is to get this band into high profile venues in Jacksonville. My main focus is this band and the impact for the community, Jacksonville and Florida. I would like to branch out and take this national, maybe even international. I want to get people more excited about what were doing and building. It’s something to protect to keep the arts alive.”