JoVia

From Detroit, MI hails percussionist JoVia Lilyahnna Armstrong. JoVia began studying percussion as a high school freshman. By her senior year, she was section leader in the symphony orchestra, the symphony band, the concert band, the percussion ensemble and the jazz orchestra. Throughout the week and weekend, she was a percussionist in the Detroit Symphony Civic Orchestra, the Wayne State University Honors Band, and the Charles Post Military Band. She enrolled at Michigan State University as a percussionist performance major where she continued to perform and study orchestral percussion (including 4- mallet marimba/vibraphone). She also performed in MSU’s Drumline Percussion Pit for various competitions and performances throughout the Midwest including competitions for PASIC in Nashville, TN. As a freshman, she attended a World Percussion clinic at PASIC in ’96 that changed her goals as a percussionist.
In her sophomore year she began to study African Cuban percussion and drum set with performer and educator Francisco Mora-Catlett. Outside of MSU's school of music, JoVia began to study and perform with various on-campus ensembles of different genres. These genres included African drumming & dance, Latin Jazz, and also Korean drumming. Performing with these ensembles opened her eyes to a world of music that was not taught in formal school. So she decided to pursue these musical worlds professionally. Performing the styles of Gospel, R&B, Jazz, African, and African Cuban has provided her with versatility not found in every musician. "Being versatile is a characteristic that I try to teach students who aspire to be musicians, especially percussionists & drummers. I try to point out some type of relationship between different genres (such as Hip-Hop and Classical) so that the music of other cultures will not sound foreign to them. You will find percussion in every culture of the world, therefore there is no limit to your versatility," she says. JoVia has taught percussion and computer music production classes to large groups of students for various nonprofit organizations in Chicago, Detroit, and East Lansing
JoVia played Cajon (box drum) for the “Tour of the Americas 2004”. The group performed original and traditional songs of Chile, Peru, Bolivia, Venezuela, and Argentina. During a show at the Latin American Music Festival in Milwaukee, she was invited to accompany Joe VasConsellos, currently the top billing artist in Chile, on congas.
After earning a B.A. in Music Business at Columbia College Chicago, she quickly relocated back to Motown in 2002. Since her move back to Motown, she has performed with various artists such as British recording artist Omar Lye- Fook (better known as OMAR- www.omarmusic.net), (excluding musicians from the “Tour of the Americas 2004”), Chilean artist Joe VasConcellos, Philadelphia native RES, Alison Crockett, Gordon Chambers, Conya Doss, Yolanda Johnson, flautist Nicole Mitchell, saxophonist David Boykin, trumpeters Corey Wilkes, Maurice Brown, David Young, bluesmen Billy Branch and Ron Prince, Althea Rene, Brian O’Neal, Level Rizon, Cello, Nadir, Ed Stone, Painted Pictures, Wendell Harrison, BSTC, Mathias, Inohs Sivad, and Heather Moran. She performed with various artists opening shows for such acts as Kindred the Family Soul, Thomas Mapfumo, and The Bad Plus. She has had the pleasure of sharing the stage with Amp Fiddler, Trey Anastacio and Michael Franti & Spearhead.
Besides performing and recording, JoVia is currently writing songs for her company Drunkin’ Fingers Music Group, slowly writing for her solo project. She has also become more involved in concert productions & the business end of the music industry in Detroit.