David Manson

composer/arranger, trombonist, director, concert presenter, producer, recording arts educator

"Manson is a multi-dimensional musician. He expands the musical framework for the trombone and produces challenging sounds in the process. His thought processes run deep, resulting in music with stimulating and logically flowing characteristics built into brawny trombone execution." - Frank Rubolino, Cadence
 

David Manson, DMA, is a versatile trombonist, composer, improvisor, presenter, and music technologist whose work spans avant-garde new music, jazz, orchestral performance, and contemporary music technology. He holds a Doctorate of Musical Arts from the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music.

Manson began his orchestral career with positions in the Florida West Coast Symphony Orchestra, Memphis Symphony Orchestra, and Terre Haute Symphony, and taught low brass and jazz studies at Indiana State University before returning to Florida. A champion of contemporary classical and experimental music, he has appeared as a featured soloist and composer at the BONK New Music Festival, Subtropics New Music Festival, Society of Composers, Inc. (SCI), and SEAMUS. He has recorded and performed with leading improvisational icons, including Cecil Taylor, Sam Rivers, Eugene Chadbourne, John Lindberg, and Davey Williams. In popular and commercial music, he has backed legendary artists such as Henry Mancini, Burt Bacharach, Johnny Mathis, and Napoleon Murphy Brock, and toured with the world-famous Glenn Miller Orchestra. From 1993 to 2007, he served as trombonist and arranger for Bogus Pomp, a ten-member Frank Zappa repertoire ensemble.

His extensive discography as a soloist, leader, and arranger includes Modern Music for Trombone (LPS 3209), Beast (Isospin), Particle Zoo with ensemble SHIM, Fluid Motion with jazz legend Sam Rivers, Infinita Bossa, A Kiss for Rio, Go!, Contiguity with LaPlacian Fields, Aberto with Brazilian ensemble O Som Do Jazz, and Radiant Forces with the Helios Jazz Orchestra. Manson’s orchestral compositions have been performed by the Florida Orchestra and the Pittsburgh Civic Orchestra, and his music has been placed in major television productions across HBO, BBC, Showtime, Fox, CW, ABC, and AMC.

As a champion for music and community arts, Manson serves as Founder and Director of the nonprofit EMIT, through which he directed the long-running series of adventurous music at the Salvador Dalí Museum, Palladium Theater and other venues. He produces the annual St. Petersburg Jazz Festival and Tampa Bay Latin Jazz Fest. Through EMIT and his former leadership of the Tampa Bay Composers' Forum (1995–2003), he has presented over 500 concerts of forward-thinking music and directed more than $300,000 in funding directly to Florida musicians.

Manson is a Distinguished Professor Emeritus at St. Petersburg College, where he co-founded the Music Industry/Recording Arts (MIRA) program, reestablished Jazz Studies, and created the college's first ensemble-in-residence with the Helios Jazz Orchestra. He was named Distinguished Faculty at SPC in 2015.

His honors include three Artist Fellowships in Music Composition from the Florida Arts Council, grants from Creative Pinellas, the NEA, and Meet The Composer, a Fulbright-Hays project in Turkey, and a feature on the Southern Arts Federation’s JazzSouth radio program. In 2024, Manson was honored with the Phoenix Award for community service by the Warehouse Arts District Association and received two Bronze Medals at the Global Music Awards. He continues to direct the Helios Jazz Orchestra, lead O Som Do Jazz, and produce innovative music programs throughout the Tampa Bay area.