Reginald Bowens
Cleveland native Reginald Bowens’ gifted art has wrought him an exceptional background over the years, working with accomplished artists such as Bobby McFerrin, Smokie Robinson, Kenny Loggins, and Kim Nazarian, to name a few. After completion of his undergraduate degree program at Washington, D.C.’s Howard University in 2011, he appeared on season three of NBC’s hit a cappella television show “The Sing-Off” as a vocal bass contestant, arranger, and music director with Afro-Blue. Later that year, he returned to Cleveland and became a faculty member at The Music Settlement – a community music school – where he served in many capacities to help further music education in the Cleveland community, especially with inner-city teenagers and young men from age nine and up.
This experience led Bowens to found his A Cappella Camp in 2013 (www.theacappellacamp.com), which has made appearances on Ideastream with Leon Bibb, and on Fox 8 News’ Kickin’ It With Kenny in Cleveland. He is an accomplished arranger in the a cappella and jazz communities, and since he began “doodling” with Finale Notation Software in the seventh grade, while a student at Cleveland School of the Arts, his ability to create refreshing arrangements has flourished. Over the years, his arrangements and performances have brought him recognition in DownBeat Magazine’s Student Music Awards.
After receiving his master of music degree from the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University, Bowens became a faculty member at Cuyahoga Community College where he was the primary voice instructor, and taught courses in traditional and jazz piano studies. In 2019, he joined the faculty at Cleveland State University as the instructor of jazz voice, which was an inaugural course of study in the School of Music, and in 2021, he developed an inaugural course of study in gospel piano. He has worked with iconic musical artists performing multiple genres, and proving that music is a universal language in which he is fluent.