Fluent on electric bass and double bass, Dr. Donovan Stokes currently teaches bass and composition in the Department of Music at Valdosta State University in Valdosta, GA and bass at Darton College in Albany, Ga and bass in the Schwob School of Music at Columbus State University in Columbus, GA. An active soloist, composer, and clinician Stokes is a specialist in the use of amplified and electronically manipulated double bass and performs regularly both as a soloist and a sideman in a wide variety of musical genres.

His 2006 CD of unamplified solo bass works, “Gadaha,” compelled one critic to state that Stokes “is to the string bass as Basquiat was to canvas,”while Vince Pinedo of Slow Burn says “it sounds like they handed out cellos at the asylum.”

Stokes has received recent commissions from the Young Bassist’s Division of the International Society of Bassists, Musical Arts Society of Chicago and the Valdosta Symphony Orchestra. His recent Titanium Jr. for intermediate level bass and string orchestra, will receive it’s premiere performance by Ken Fuller in Evanston, Il in May of 2007. His most recent concert work Caoineadh Mhná na Neachtlanna Mhaigdiléana (Lament for the Women of the Magdalene Laundries) for Solo Double Bass and Orchestra was premiered by the composer in October 2006 with the Valdosta Symphony Orchestra. Stokes' recent work "Feel of the Steel" was selected for performeance by the 2007 "One Minute Wonders" Project in the United Kingdom.

Donovan Stokes can be found teaching and performing each year at the Golden Gate Bass Camp (Oakland, CA), and the Richard Davis Bass Weekend (Madison, WI). Stokes is married to fellow bassist, and International Society of Bassists Young Bass Ambassador for 2001, “Sweet Mama Low Tones,” Inez Wyrick.

www.donovanstokes.com