John Davis
Host, Reporter, Assistant News Directorjrdavis@wgcu.org
John Davis has been a Reporter/Producer for WGCU since 2007. For more than a decade he served as the local host for NPR’s Morning Edition. He currently serves as producer and host of WGCU’s radio talk program Gulf Coast Life Arts Edition with John Davis. Prior to joining WGCU, he worked at WDUQ-FM in Pittsburgh, PA (now WESA) covering local government and general assignments. John studied journalism at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, before earning a Bachelor of Arts degree in Communication from Florida Gulf Coast University. His work has garnered awards from the Press Club of Western Pennsylvania, the Radio Television Digital News Association, and a first-place award and “Best in Show” from the Florida Associated Press for his investigative work in 2011. Davis helped lead news team coverage around the clock during Hurricane Irma in 2017, which won a National Edward R. Morrow Award. More recently, his election and political coverage has garnered awards from the Florida Association of Broadcast Journalists.
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The Southwest Florida Symphony kicks off 2024 with the second concert of this season’s Masterworks series. The performance features Grammy winning violinist and vocalist Charles Yang performing arrangements of songs by The Beatles and the Animals. The concert also includes a performance of perhaps the most well-known classical composition in modern times, Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5.
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Gulf Coast Life Arts Edition’s 2023 year-end music review is look back at some of the musicians featured on the program over the past year. We’ll hear original music from a broad spectrum of music genres as well as conversation with the artists telling stories about what inspired their songs.
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The Florida Repertory Theatre is performing Katori Hall’s play “The Mountaintop,” which serves as a fictional reimagining Dr. Martin Luther King Jr’s last night before his assassination after delivering his historic “I Have Been to the Mountaintop” speech. We’ll hear from the production’s director, Ansley Valentine.
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Players Circle Theater is collaborating with the Sanibel Captiva Conservation Foundation to present an evening of short plays centered in the climate crisis. The Dec. 12 performances are part of a global initiative called Climate Change Theatre Action, which highlights the role arts and culture play in addressing the climate crisis.
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The Alliance for the Arts hosts the 5th annual Arts on Tap fundraising celebration, Friday, Dec. 1, including live music, craft brewers and food trucks. Alliance Executive Director Molly Rowan-Deckart previews the event and talks about the nonprofit’s latest gallery exhibition, the new digital arts laboratory, the Alliance’s ongoing Art House Cinema series, and the upcoming release of the newest Arts and Economic Prosperity study.
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Opera Naples Artistic and Music Director Ramón Tebar joins us live in studio to highlight the opera company’s upcoming performance offerings including the Winter Dreams Gala in December, performances of Gilbert and Sullivan’s Iolanthe, and Opera Naples’ fourth annual Festival Under the Stars in March 2024.
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The Lee County Supervisor of Elections office is now using BallotTrax to keep voters updated on the status of their vote-by-mail ballots.
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Co-founder and original band member of the new wave band DEVO, Bob Lewis, is in Fort Myers to deliver a lecture, reading and Q&A event, Nov. 9, in conjunction with an exhibition now at the Bob Rauschenberg Gallery at Florida Southwestern State College marking the 50th anniversary of the iconic band. Lewis joins us in studio ahead of the event along with Rauschenberg Gallery Director Jade Dellinger. Dellinger is co-author of “The Beginning Was the End: Devo in Ohio,” which serves as a definitive account of DEVO’s early history.
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For more than a decade, a medical device equipment sterilization plant emitted carcinogenic air pollution in Central Fort Myers, creating an increased lifetime cancer risk for those exposed. On Nov. 1, officials with the EPA and the Florida DEP met with concerned residents. WGCU’s John Davis gets details in a conversation with News-Press Senior Writer Amy Bennett Williams, who has been covering this developing story.
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The Southwest Florida Symphony’s first Masterworks Series program features well-known works by iconic American composers Aaron Copland, George Gershwin, Leonard Bernstein and John Williams. The Marcus Roberts Trio joins the symphony to perform Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue” ahead of next year’s 100th anniversary of the composition. Ahead of the Nov. 4 concert, we get a preview from Maestro Radu Paponiu and the Symphony’s Community Outreach Ambassador Robert Van Winkle.