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Teaching Artist Review
About the Artist
Dianna Davis is a music performer and educator based in Indianapolis. After receiving her Bachelor of Music in piano and clarinet performance from Millikin University and Master of Music Performance in classical music from Indiana University eighteen years ago, she began to explore other musical genres including improvisation, jazz, and international folk.
After experiencing a Roma band thrill an audience and move them to dance wildly to music, she knew that that's the kind of music she wanted to play. After encouragement from her bandmate, she picked up an accordion, and she’s been playing and teaching accordion ever since.
In 2017, Dianna received a Creative Renewal Fellowship to travel to Castelfidardo, Italy to study the art of accordion repair. She now repairs accordions in Indianapolis and in the greater Midwest area.
Dianna joined Arts for Learning Indiana in 2018, demonstrating her accordion and the art of instrument building. She also leads workshops in community improvisation, believing that everyone can create music together.
In addition to accordion repair work, Dianna performs as a soloist and as a member of several bands that sing in multiple languages from around the world, including Baba Yaga’s Stew and il Troubadore.
In addition, she has studied jazz music and plays contra dance music, a form of contemporary folk dance music. She teaches private lessons on multiple instruments and is an adjunct music professor at Ivy Tech Community College. She is a six-time Indiana Arts Commission awardee through their Arts in the Park grant program and Individual Artist grant program.
Dianna enjoys utilizing all of the skills and musicianship that she has learned from her classical music training, supplementing it with folk, world, and improvisation genres, and combining these skills with her experience as a teacher with diverse students of multiple races, ages, and handicaps.
After experiencing a Roma band thrill an audience and move them to dance wildly to music, she knew that that's the kind of music she wanted to play. After encouragement from her bandmate, she picked up an accordion, and she’s been playing and teaching accordion ever since.
In 2017, Dianna received a Creative Renewal Fellowship to travel to Castelfidardo, Italy to study the art of accordion repair. She now repairs accordions in Indianapolis and in the greater Midwest area.
Dianna joined Arts for Learning Indiana in 2018, demonstrating her accordion and the art of instrument building. She also leads workshops in community improvisation, believing that everyone can create music together.
In addition to accordion repair work, Dianna performs as a soloist and as a member of several bands that sing in multiple languages from around the world, including Baba Yaga’s Stew and il Troubadore.
In addition, she has studied jazz music and plays contra dance music, a form of contemporary folk dance music. She teaches private lessons on multiple instruments and is an adjunct music professor at Ivy Tech Community College. She is a six-time Indiana Arts Commission awardee through their Arts in the Park grant program and Individual Artist grant program.
Dianna enjoys utilizing all of the skills and musicianship that she has learned from her classical music training, supplementing it with folk, world, and improvisation genres, and combining these skills with her experience as a teacher with diverse students of multiple races, ages, and handicaps.
