If you're curious

David Lee Zamora is a composer (ASCAP), jazz pianist, banjo, and mariachi harp player based in Del Rio and the South Texas area. Influenced by Duke Ellington and the great jazz bands from the 1930’s, his sound and musical compositions are reminiscent of a distant era and rooted in tradition.

In High School, David showed a great interest in the vintage repertoire that was a common occurrence in the Del Rio High School Jazz Band. His new passion for jazz ultimately led him to receive many awards including Most Outstanding Musician for the Texas A&M University-Kingsville Jazz Festival in 2018 and an Outstanding Soloist Award for the Texas regional Essentially Ellington Contest in 2022. During his senior year he also decided to start the first student-led Jazz combo at DRHS which won first place at the TAMUK Jazz Festival in 2022.

David is currently finishing his double concentration of Jazz Studies and Piano Pedagogy at Texas A&M University-Kingsville and will also be getting a Sound Recording Technology (SRT) certificate. He has studied a few courses at Berklee College of Music and has received multiple lessons by musicians like Damian Garcia, Nando Michelin, Vaughn Brathwaite, Peter Bufano, and Vincent Gardner. Currently Theresa Chen is his applied piano professor.

Aside from school, David leads the musical group “The Dirty Creek Jazz Orchestra” which he founded in the fall of 2022. This orchestra specializes in performing authentic charts from the 1930’s for a modern audience. David credits his inspiration after a phone call with Vince Giordano (Band leader of “The Nighthawks”) in which many tips and arranging advice was interchanged. In 2023, David was asked to work with the Region 15 TMEA Middle School Jazz Band Rhythm Section when Aldo Morales (his former band director) was invited to be the guest clinician. In December of the same year he was invited to direct the combo for Del Rio Highscool when they got invited to perform at the Midwest Clinic in Chicago.