World a stage for sax player
By Matthew Fox
Expect to see saxophonist Dave Camwell, BMus’00, performing at Carnegie Hall in the next five years. Although that may seem a lofty goal for a 29-year-old, he’s already proven his mettle.
 Camwell’s brief career is peppered with highlights. This summer,
he presented a work he commissioned from composer Nate Brown
at the 14th World Saxophone Congress in Slovenia. He performed
Ibert’s “Concertino da Camera” at the University of Manitoba
(accompanied by U of C alumni Jeremy Legault, BMus’99, DFA’04).
And in February, the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music’s James
Bunte performed a Camwell arrangement (Schumann’s “Fantasiestücke”)
at Carnegie Hall.
Now the director of saxophone and jazz studies at Simpson
College—a liberal arts college near Des Moines, Iowa—Camwell
has good things to say about his alma mater.
“I had a wonderful relationship with [retired] Prof. Warren Rowley,” he recalls. “The skills he imparted to me were invaluable. I still think about and share them with my students today.”
The young saxophonist was three years into his degree at U
of C when the jazz program here ended. “In retrospect, it was a blessing. I wouldn’t have otherwise gone to the States as early as I did,” he says.
Camwell moved to Alabama to complete his undergraduate studies—a dual degree in jazz studies and music education from the U of C and Jacksonville State—and began his ascension through the ranks of sax educators and performers.
He later earned dual master’s degrees in music performance and music education from the University of Northern Colorado, and will shortly defend his doctorate in musical arts at the University of Oregon.
When will he hit Carnegie Hall?
“Performing there within five years is my goal, but you need to dedicate six months to it,” says the teacher, recruiter, administrator, performer and husband (to Jillian Camwell, BMus’00, who plays third oboe and English horn with the Cedar Rapids Symphony Orchestra).
“I simply have too many things going on right now!”
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