January – February

Featured Composer

Mike Dana

Composer, educator, and guitarist Mike Dana was Director of Jazz Studies at Fresno City College from 1990 to 2018. AT FCC, Mike directed the award-winning Jazz Ensemble, Jazz Combos, and co-directed the Vocal Jazz Ensemble. He also taught advanced improvisation, jazz theory, arranging, and jazz history.

His guitar credits include performances with Cannonball Adderley, Gary Burton, Clark Terry, Bob Mintzer, Bobby Shew, Ingrid Jensen, Ernie Watts, Arturo Sandoval, Eric Marienthal, and many others. His commissions, compositions and arrangements for both instrumental and vocal jazz ensemble are widely performed across the U.S. These are published by Belwin/Alfred, Kendor, Jazzlines, UNC Jazz Press, and Heritage Music Press.

In 2004, Mike founded (and serves as musical director of) the Jazz Composers Orchestra, an ensemble made up of the finest jazz musicians and educators in central California. This ensemble was invited to perform the Gil Evans Fellowship commission at the IAJE conference in January 2005.
Mike’s performing and teaching have taken him around the world. As part of the faculty of Jazz Education Abroad, Mike performs and teaches regularly in Lebanon, Cyprus, China, and Thailand, where he was a US State Department cultural envoy as a member of the Allison Miller Quartet. Other honors include the Grammy Foundation Music Educator of the Year semi-finalist (2016), California Jazz Educator of the Year (CMEA, 2018), and induction into the California Alliance for Jazz Hall of Fame (2018.)

Mike continues to be active as a performer, leading his own quartet, co-leading The Guitar Summit, directing the Jazz Composers Orchestra, and hosting regular jam sessions.