Jazz bassist Davis to receive Governor’s Award

Internationally renowned jazz bassist Richard Davis, a professor of music at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, is among the statewide roster of artists to receive a 2001 Governor’s Award from the Wisconsin Foundation for the Arts.

The awards, given annually since 1980, recognize individual leadership, and exemplary activity by an arts organization and by a business or corporation.

Davis has been on the UW–Madison music faculty since 1977. Over the years he has performed and recorded with Bruce Springsteen, Miles Davis, Frank Sinatra, Rickie Lee Jones, Igor Stravinsky, Al Jarreau, Grover Washington Jr., John Lennon and others.

Davis will be honored in the individual leadership category for his creation of the nonprofit Foundation for Young Bassists. Since 1994, the foundation has hosted a yearly conference for budding bassists ages 3 to 18 to work with master bass instructors-performers.

In receiving the Governor’s Award, Davis will join Milwaukee arts philanthropists Edwin and Barbara Wiley, the Lucius Woods Performing Arts Center in Solon Springs, the Greater Milwaukee Committee for behind-the-scenes contributions to the city’s cultural and economic base, and the Miller Brewing Co. for its expanded support of the arts.

Each honoree will receive an original work by Madison hand-lettering artist Linda P. Hancock at a reception Tuesday, Nov. 13. For information, contact foundation administrator Beverly Lemberger, (608) 251-5000, or foundation executive director Kristi Williams, (608) 839-4758.