Teacher Profile: David Stevens
About David Stevens
David Stevens has been a multi-instrumentalist since 1982, teaching and performing classical, jazz, rock, country, and other popular styles. Trained classically at Brigham Young University on the piano, he earned a Bachelor of Arts, and then completed a Master of Arts at the University of Utah in 1995. He began exploring other instruments such as drums, pitched percussion, guitar, and bass guitar, playing popular styles in various groups. He also completed a teacher certification in Secondary Education in Communications and Language Arts from Bemidji State University in 2011, and in Music Education from Utah Technical University in 2017.
His professional career began in 1982 in Zion National Park, Utah, where he was hired by Keele Family Productions at the Olde Church to play piano, sing, and act for a melodrama, musical revue, and accompany contestants at a weekly talent show, which received great reviews in The Daily Spectrum and The Las Vegas Review-Journal. He then spent a little over a year in Puerto Rico, learning about Salsa music, performing in various ensembles in the Caribbean on piano and percussion.
In 1985 he auditioned for, and won a spot in the US Air Force Band where he played keyboards, guitar, bass guitar, percussion, and sang in various groups and venues all over the world, including a memorable harpsichord performance in a Japanese production of Handel’s The Messiah; timpani, tubular bells, and other pitched percussion in The US Air Force Symphonic Band of the Pacific; piano and vocals in The 8th Air Force Jazz Band (originally formed by Glenn Miller); and drums in a Louisiana-based blues band. He enjoyed travelling all over the world from 1985-1991, playing over 1,500 shows, concerts, and intimate settings for international ambassadors, and leaders of nations. He learned new styles of music from many lands including Taiko and J-Pop from Japan; Pinoy Rock and The Manila Sound from The Philippines; City Pop from South Korea; Synth-Pop and New Romantic from England; Neue Deutsch Welle from Germany; and many others.
David has performed with various ensembles throughout the United States, including California, Utah, Nevada, Minnesota, Ohio, Louisiana, Mississippi, Texas, Alabama, Georgia, and New York. One of his favorite highlights included being selected as the featured artist in February of 2017 at Utah Technical University, where he performed a solo piano jazz set, and then was joined for a final set by bassist Dr. Robert Matheson and drummer/percussionist Dr. Glenn Webb, both professors at Utah Technical University.
He currently plays piano, sings, directs the choir, leads the band, and provides sermons for various church services in the Seattle area. He continues performing piano, percussion, guitar, and bass guitar part time, always smiling, bouncing around the stage, contributing a baritone voice to blues, jazz, and rock genres. He speaks Spanish and Japanese, and continues learning about multiple cultures worldwide. He teaches many students in his own studio, and for Lessons In Your Home, a national company that features artist/teachers who travel to your home to instruct people of all ages in music, instructing student-artists how to build a repertoire of their own to perform and delight audiences all over the United States.