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Andrew Davis appointed Director of the Moores School of Music

Dr. Andrew Davis, associate professor of music theory, has accepted a three-year appointment to the position of Director of the Moores School of Music, effective June 1, 2014. He will hold the Margaret M. Alkek and Margaret Alkek Williams Endowed Chair at the University of Houston.

Dr. Davis succeeds Dr. David Ashley White, who chose to end his 15-year tenure as Moores School director effective on June 1 to resume his teaching, research and creative activities, including a commission for the 2016 American Guild of Organists National Convention to be held in Houston that year.

“The school will remain in excellent hands,” Dr. White said, “and it will be exciting and gratifying to watch students, staff and faculty continue to flourish.”

Prior to his appointment as director, Dr. Davis served as the Moores School’s director of graduate studies and as an associate dean in the Honors College. In his Honors College role, Dr. Davis led with Honors College Dean William Monroe the university-wide committee charged with bringing a chapter of the prestigious honor society Phi Beta Kappa to the University of Houston.

“The Moores School of Music is extraordinarily well-positioned to secure its place as one of the finest public university schools of music in the world,” Dr. Davis said. “Its faculty, staff, students, and physical infrastructure are second to none.

“In the coming years, we will continue the fine work of David Ashley White, as well as of David Tomatz before him, as we build our national and international competitiveness and extend our engagement into the neighborhood around us and into the city at large, continuing to contribute to life in Houston as one of the finest and most dynamic arts organizations in this great city.”

Dr. Davis received a UH Teaching Excellence Award in 2010 and has twice been nominated for the Ross M. Lence Award for Teaching Excellence in the Humanities.

As a researcher, he has studied 19th-century classical music and early 20th-century opera. He authored the 2010 book, Il Trittico, Turandot, and Puccini’s Late Style (Indiana University Press). He also has written a forthcoming book focused on rhetoric and narrative in the nineteenth-century sonata, especially in music of Brahms. Additionally, Dr. Davis has delivered presentations nationally and internationally on the works of Brahms, Chopin, Liszt, Puccini, Strauss and Gershwin.

He serves as the treasurer for the Texas Society for Music Theory and is president of the Houston chapter of the national music honor society Pi Kappa Lambda. He is an active member of the National Association of Schools of Music, including that organization’s team of members that recommend accreditation actions for schools of music nationwide. He is secretary of the board of directors of the Phi Beta Kappa Alumni Association of Greater Houston, and serves on the board of the Immanuel and Helen B. Olshan Foundation, an important benefactor of the arts in Houston.

Dr. Davis holds the Ph.D. in music theory from Indiana University, an M.M. in music theory from the University of Massachusetts, and a B.A. in music (summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa, and with a certificate in saxophone performance and a minor and honors in Geography) from the Pennsylvania State University.