Monte Hill Davis (born 24 May 1932) is an American classical pianist.[1][2]
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Davis has toured and performed in Europe, Brazil, Peru, Balzano, Italy (the Busoni), Geneva, Switzerland, and Munich, Germany. Davis won first prize in the International Piano Competition in Munich in 1955. She won second place in the 1953 Ferruccio Busoni International Piano Competition. Davis also has performed with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, the Dallas Pops Orchestra directed by Arthur Fiedler,[3] the National Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Howard Mitchell, and the Boston Pops.
Davis began teaching piano at Southern Methodist University in 1962.
Davis began studying piano when she was five years old. She appeared with the Houston Symphony Orchestra, playing Mozart's Piano Concerto in D major, when she was nine years old. Three years later, on the recommendation of Ernest Hoffmann, she was sent to Denton, Texas, to study with Isabel and Silvio Scionti.[4] She stayed in Denton through high school and went on to the University of North Texas where in 1952 she earned a Bachelor of Music in piano and in 1957 she earned a Master of Music in piano. In 1963, Davis studied piano with Ilona Kabos in London.[5]
In 1953, Davis returned from Europe to America to marry Jack David Alexander who, in 1962, was among the 45 crew and passengers killed in a Continental Airlines Flight 11 crash near Centerville, Iowa.[6] It was the first known case of sabotage aboard a commercial jet airliner. Jack had been a saxophonist studying at the University of North Texas and had also been a partner at Futuresonic Productions Inc., a producer of jingles. Before then, beginning in 1955, he had been an account executive at PAMS.[7] Monte and Jack had two girls: Monte Ann and Katherine Lee (born 1961; married to Bryan Lee).[8]