Darcy Davis - Pianist, Poet and Producer 

Born in the ‘middle of nowhere’ and the ‘centre of everywhere’. Alice Springs export, Darcy Davis, has been on the quest for musical mastery since beginning lessons at age 4 in his home town in Central Australia.

 

Since graduating from Melbourne Polytechnic with a diploma in music performance, Darcy has performed at countless music festivals around Australia, produced multiple records and honed the craft of sequencing and synthesis from the remote desert studio, Red House Recording.  Seeking to improve his skills even further, he applied and was accepted into the Music Production and Engineering Degree at the prestigious Berklee College of Music in Boston, where he could continue to grow as both a player and producer.

 

The journey away from his tiny isolated home community was humbling and transformative. Now in his 6th semester at the college, Darcy has come a long way to find his place as a musician and sound engineer in such a competitive environment.

 

In the summer of 2018, he returned to his hometown for the first time after almost 2 years away. Darcy ‘hit the ground running’ in sharing and cultivating these new skills amongst his community in Central Australia. In these 4 months home, he engaged in one of his most challenging experiences to date: to record the 6th instalment in the UPK compilation music series. Uwankara Palyanku, Kanyintjaku translates from Pitjantjatjara to ‘Everybody Creating and Holding the Future, Together’ and is a strategy for wellbeing that was conceived his father Bill Davis, a pioneer of contemporary Aboriginal music, to create albums that would educate the people of these areas about health and inspire a better lifestyle. This is particularly important among these ancient people who have been terribly affected by colonisation in the past 200 years.  Applying his new found skills in composition and production learned at Berklee, Darcy, with the guidance of his father, set up a recording studio powered by a generator on West Bore Camel Station, outside of Fregone community, South Australia, around 400km south west of Alice Springs. After 8 weeks of solid recording, mixing and session playing, he finished one of his proudest and most meaningful works to date: UPK#6 - available on all platforms now.

 

A loved and valued member of the Berklee community, Darcy has brought his skills as a keyboard player to the college, performing at 4 ‘Caf Shows' and 3 student recitals. Darcy has also collaborated with various musicians and producers at school as a rapper and vocalist. Through social media and live streaming, he has exposed musicians from Berklee to his international community via online radios show as a DJ on the BIRN for over 4 semesters. He has helped to raise the production values of the Sounds of Berklee Podcast to a new level through his work-study role of producer and engineer. On top of these achievements within the school, he has also collaborated with Music Business student and friend Jack Bradley to start his own YouTube channel and original podcast‘Aux Cord University’. Since its conception, the station has gained traction with interviews from faculty members such as Susan Rogers, Pat Pattison and Prince Charles Alexander and has been well received from students and the wider community alike.

 

Darcy is always stepping into his areas of weakness to develop the skills and craftsmanship of a true professional in the music industry. More than competing with people, he places the highest importance on collaboration and community, so that success can be gained alongside his contemporaries at home and abroad.