The San Francisco Conservatory of Music (SFCM) announced today Jordyn Davis, 29, as the winner of the first jazz-specific prize of the Emerging Black Composers Project (EBCP).

As the winner of the Emerging Black Composers Project's Jazz Prize, Davis will receive a commissioning cash prize of $4,000 for the composition of a new 10-15 minute musical work set to premiere at SFCM next season. The ensemble will consist of a standard jazz big band or jazz orchestra, but can include the addition of other instruments and sections.

"It's wonderful to join this lineage of artists I know who have come through the EBCP," Jordyn Davis said. "I met Trevor Weston, who was awarded the first EBCP prize, via the Composing Inclusion initiative, and Sumi Tonooka, who was also a winner, is a great friend and mentor of mine. She told me, 'You need to be a part of this.' So I thought, 'I'm going to submit an orchestral work and a jazz work,” Davis added.

Davis will also receive mentorship from EBCP committee members, and resources to workshop her piece ahead of its premiere.  

“The EBCP Jazz Prize is the continuation of SFCM's commitment to cultivating and spearheading the next generation of great Black composers,” said Jason Hainsworth, Executive Director of the Roots, Jazz, and American Music (RJAM) program and Associate Dean of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion and Special Advisor to the President at SFCM. “Jazz is America's homegrown art form and I'm extremely proud that the inaugural winner of the Jazz Prize is a talented Black woman. I can't wait to hear what Jordyn composes for us to perform,” he added.

Davis was selected as the winner through a review process overseen by the EBCP.

This new award is in addition to the SFCM and the San Francisco Symphony’s EBCP Michael Morgan Prize, and the Cabrillo Emerging Black Composers Prize. With Davis winning this prize and commission she is now the 11th winner in total since the EBCP began. This exciting win is in line with the EBCP’s ongoing goal of spotlighting early-career Black American composers and their music. It was launched in 2020 with the first-place commission awarded to Trevor Weston in June 2021.

Born in 1995 in Detroit, Michigan, Davis is a pioneering force in contemporary music, celebrated for her versatility as a bassist, vocalist, and multi-instrumentalist. Davis made history as the first African-American woman to earn a Bachelor’s Degree in Music Composition from Michigan State University, where she also became the first student to receive simultaneous degrees in Music Composition and Jazz Studies.

"I am an American composer, but I don't just do this one thing," Davis said. "I'm a songwriter. I love film music. I became an orchestrator and studied composition. I learned how to do all of these things, but being a jazz musician and being a bass player is a huge part of my musical identity and my spirituality."

After completing a Master’s Degree in Jazz Studies, Davis moved to Brooklyn, NY, where she was named an inaugural Jazz Leader Fellow at the Brooklyn Conservatory of Music in 2021. In 2024, she was selected as one of three inaugural New York Community Trust Van Lier Fellows with the American Composers Orchestra.

Applications open for next year's Emerging Black Composers Project on November 1, 2024.

Learn more about the Emerging Black Composers Project.