• Professor emerita of Music
• Email: anndanis@uri.edu

Biography

ANN DANIS is a Professor emerita of Music and the former Director of Orchestral Activities at the University of Rhode Island. As a performer on violin and viola, clinician, and as a guest conductor, Ann travels and performs throughout the county and internationally. She founded the Ocean State Chamber Orchestra in 1991 and is an active collaborator with both OSCO and the University of Rhode Island Symphony Orchestra.

A graduate of the New England Conservatory of Music, she earned undergraduate and graduate degrees in violin performance, with principle teachers George Zazofsky and Joseph Silverstein. She was a Graduate Assistant in early music and worked with Daniel Pinkham, Rudolph Kolisch, James Pappoutsakis, and Aldo Parisot and studied conducting with Richard Pittman and later with Andrew Massey. Between 1990 and 2019, Ms. Danis has led All-State and Festival Orchestras in Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, North Carolina, Virginia, Washington, Georgia, and New York.

Recognized by critics and audiences for her innovative and daring programming, Ann has demonstrated a firm commitment to the presentation of new works and exposing audiences to modern repertoire in a casual and informative setting. Ms. Danis has worked internationally, in Belize, Central America, and in the south of France through her collaborative ensemble Les Femmes Internationales (International Women). She continues to work as an advocate for string and music education as well as the development of audiences.

Having established the Trexler Memorial Scholarship Fund at the URI Foundation, in recent years, Ms. Danis enhanced that fund through an award from the Foundation for the Advancement of String Education. Having often contributed to state-wide music educator journals, she was most recently published in the August 2018 issue of Strings magazine.

Professor Danis retired from the University of Rhode Island in the Spring of 2022.