Harmony of Life: Tina Davidson’s Inspiring Journey from Adoption to Musical Legacy

Rich Bennett 0:00
Tina Davidson stands out as an acclaimed American composer with over 45 years in the industry. Celebrated for her evocative and lyrical compositions. Her work has graced esteemed stages worldwide, garnering praise from major publications like The New York Times. Tina's collaborations include renowned names like the National Symphony Orchestra and Grammy winner Hilary Hahn, a passionate educator and community builder. She's founded key initiatives like the Philadelphia Chapter of the American Composers Forum and nurtured young talents through innovative residencies. Beyond music, Tina has captured her journey and her 2023 memoir, Let Your Heart Be Broken. Born in Stockholm and enriched by experiences in New York and Pennsylvania, Tina's life and work served as an inspiration for many people. I hope I know I can't read the whole biography because we'd be here all day because of everything that you've done. So first of all, how are you doing, Tina? 

Tina Davidson 1:05
Oh, I am so delighted to be here. I'm talking to you out of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, which is. 

Rich Bennett 1:10
Right up the road. 

Tina Davidson 1:11
Oh, yeah. And you are in. 

Rich Bennett 1:13
I'm in Hartford County, Maryland. Right by right by Aberdeen. 

Tina Davidson 1:17
I am up the road from you. That. 

Rich Bennett 1:19
Huh? Yeah. As a matter of fact, my wife was talking the other to me the other day. She said we have to get up there. What's the name of the farm? God, there's a 

there's a farm up there, a store, and I'm going to forget the name of it. But she said, we have to definitely get up there. I said, Well, she went to go on a Sunday, so you can't go on a Sunday. Nothing on Sundays up there. 

Tina Davidson 1:44
Right. In Amish country, there's nothing. Right. Although there are lots of other things that are open. 

Rich Bennett 1:50
But yeah, you're quite right. I believe it was definitely an Amish farm. Quick question for you, Hilary Hahn is, is she the violinist? 

Tina Davidson 1:58
She is the child prodigy. She was the child prodigy. Hilary Hahn, a very famous violinist. And she has won multiple Grammys for her recordings. So she 

commissioned me to write a piece for her for part of her project, her encore project. And I'm, of course, usually not a performer who's done a concert, will perform an encore. It's a shorter piece, but a lot of times just really technically difficult. Sometimes it's not, but many times it's it's technically difficult and she can play just about anything. So it was a real opportunity to write her something that was personal, that felt like it came from me as a gift to her and a little tricky. It's called The Blue Curve of the Earth. And, you know, it's a little bit of an homage to the Earth. I was thinking of the the photograph from space about looking at the Earth and looking at the curve of the beautiful blue curve, you know, the ocean curve of the earth. And she toured with it. She had she actually commissioned, I think, 37 encores, but she took a couple of them, you know, one or two of them, and she toured with them. She did a recording of all the encores, and then she rerecorded my piece for her retrospective album. So it has actually got to to recordings out there. So that, yeah, it was really fun to work with her. I love working with living, you know, writing, living music for living artists. Let me be better now. 

Rich Bennett 3:53
Do you have any idea how many compositions you've written? 

Tina Davidson 3:58
No, I have not counted. Okay, so 

I don't know. You know, I think I have like ten orchestra pieces. I have maybe a 6 to 8 string quartets, a hundred hundred and 50. And I don't I. 

Rich Bennett 4:15
Guess I'm going to be over a. 

Tina Davidson 4:16
Hundred. Yeah. I'm not what you consider extremely prolific. You know, there are people like Mozart who must have been writing in his sleep, you know, who just had scores and scores and scores of pieces. But I have been composing for the last 45 years, so I've put a few on that order. 

Rich Bennett 4:38
So you started when you were five? 

Tina Davidson 4:40
I started playing the piano when I was five, and then I started writing music when I was in college. And I sort of count after college is sort of the beginning of my professional life. I probably have written more years, if you count college, right? But when I was in college, they wanted all their performers to be composers and all their composers to be performers. So I came as a piano performer. I was a pretty good pianist at that point, and they threw me into a composition class, which really kind of irritated me. Um, I, I, you know, I didn't know that women could compose music, never even thought, well, I'd never played anything by a woman composer at that point. You know, classic music. I write music out of a classical tradition, and classical music has been very almost exclusively male dominated. There are a few classical composers like Amy Bech, Fanny Mendelssohn, Clara Schumann, but you could count them on one hand. Yeah, or maybe three fingers on one hand. 

Rich Bennett 5:58
I never even thought about that. 

Tina Davidson 6:00
You know, it's a very male dominated field and one could argue, although I don't think classical musicians want to particularly argue this, is that it's a male aesthetic. 

I think there was a sense that classical music was universal, that when you wrote music, it went beyond gender or beyond classical, beyond beyond us. But or and my experience as an artist, as a lifetime artist, is that I am always composing out of what I hope is authentically me. And I am living in this time having these experiences. And for myself, I would say that I am writing music out of who I am right now, right? Well, you could apply that for Beethoven or Mozart. And then if you think of it that way, then the music would be how they saw life, felt life, what were with life from their viewpoint, from their experience. That only makes sense to me. 

So then you could say it was a male aesthetic. 

Rich Bennett 7:21
Right? 

Tina Davidson 7:22
And and for me, and I was just writing an article about that, an essay about it for me, it's a great opportunity, you know, if that is not me and I don't have to fit in to that or figure out what my relationship is to that, I can start looking not outward, but inward to my own personal experience to create music. And that is a whole huge gift. You know, I then then I have so much to say. Then I have so much to explore or to experiment with. For instance. 

Okay, I'll give you a kind of funny. 

Rich Bennett 8:04
Okay, this. 

Tina Davidson 8:05
Is kind of funny. You know, at the end of the piece, especially the last movement, which is usually pretty fast, they have what they call at the end of the piece something called a climax. Okay, well, we use that word in other terms as well. No? Oh, yeah. 

So just keep. 

Rich Bennett 8:27
Keep in mind, everybody, she lives in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Okay? Not intercourse. Okay. 

Tina Davidson 8:33
Exactly. And certainly not Black Lick, Pennsylvania, huh? Yeah, there is a Black Lick Pennsylvania. 

Rich Bennett 8:40
I didn't know about that. I knew that intercourse, it was the old bird in hand. 

Tina Davidson 8:44
Bird in hand? Yes. But Black Lick, I think, is over. Sort of towards maybe Pittsburgh. I don't know where it is. 

Rich Bennett 8:49
I just want to know who it was that came up with the names for these places. 

Tina Davidson 8:53
Well, certainly intercourse, you know, that they have many roads coming from rights. Is that that makes sense. But anyway. 

Rich Bennett 9:00
I guess. 

Tina Davidson 9:01
You. 

Rich Bennett 9:02
Hey, you started this. 

Tina Davidson 9:03
Oh, no, you just got a female. Don't you blame me. So anyway, climax in classical music, it's quite a firestorm. It's quite like explosions and, you know, endings and bam, bam, bam. That's not how I experience endings or climaxes. Okay? And when I realized that, wow, it just opened the door, you know, mine is more like it touches down. And then the minute it touches down, it kind of lifts off again. So there is this kind of energy that's flowing downward, hitting the earth and and kind of curving up again. And that became the basis of years of exploration of what my rhythms were. How did my body work, how did I feel in terms of almost in interior mechanics, muscle movements. And what I found was really quite different. My my music doesn't stop and start. It does sometimes. But in classical music there's a lot more stopping and starting. 

So I think my ability to to relate to, you know, I grew up classical music, I love classical music, but to actually name it and frame it gave me a huge amount of freedom, which is a great stopping point for trauma and difficulties in your life and how you deal with them. That ability to see and name 

can begin the process of 

understanding, dealing with exploration, thoughtfulness and a change. 

And certainly for me, not only was I doing a lot of, you know, work with therapists and writing and yoga and all the things one needs can do taking baths, long walks, having dogs to have a better stability and a clarity in my life. I was also, oddly enough, composing about it as well, right? So it was like this other 

way of looking at my life and what I was going through and who I wanted to be and where I was going. 

Rich Bennett 11:50
See. And a lot of people when it comes to especially your mental health, a lot of people journal and look at many authors out there that you know have whether anxiety or depression and writing helps them. 

Tina Davidson 12:06
Yes. 

Rich Bennett 12:06
You have I guess you could say double the benefit because you wrote a book. So you're an author, but you're also writing compositions as well, which I have to tell you this. I wanted to tell you this from the beginning. Your music is just it's beautiful. 

Tina Davidson 12:25
And you. 

Rich Bennett 12:26
To me, when you mention the part about the climax of that, you know, the booms, the bangs and all that, to me, your music, the way it ends when it gets to that you said it, but not as far as describing your music to me. It makes you feel free. 

Tina Davidson 12:43
Hmm. Wow. 

Rich Bennett 12:45
Yeah, it just. It it makes me feel good when I listen to it. Oh, thank you. That's something. That's something I believe a lot of, you know, artists have a hard time doing is making somebody else feel good with it. Because there are some pieces you listen to, some Mozart or Tchaikovsky or whatever. There are some pieces where it'll make you mad. Play to the Valkyries. I'm ready to fight every time I hear that. I mean. 

Tina Davidson 13:14
Right and that and that has its place. Yeah, that definitely has its place because, you know, we want different kinds of experiences. We want just one experience. I think for me, I've always been looking for that place in my music where I become sort of physically exhausted, like I've run out of rhythms. I'm just so exhausted by the change of that and the sort of insistence of the rhythms that I kind of that I it's almost like I'm running, I'm running and running. 

Rich Bennett 13:53
It's an exercise. 

Tina Davidson 13:55
I'm running, I'm running, I'm in a long distance run. And just at that place where I think I have no more energy, I'm completely exhausted. It's like that energy flips, it becomes something else. It's almost like it goes out of my body and up to, I don't know, up to God, up to right to the sky. There is this sort of feeling of departure out of my physical body to some place that I can only guess at. And that is something that I compose about a lot. 

Rich Bennett 14:28
That's the first time I've heard anybody describe it like that, where you get exhausted and it's an exercise and you are you're actually you're exercising your brain. It's like people realize how hard it is to compose music. It's it's it's a workout to that. And you mentioned trauma and therapy, but we really didn't go into the story of, you know, what you've gone through. Do you mind Explain your. 

Tina Davidson 14:58
But I do hope that people will read my book because it's a lot more interesting in my book. Oh, they're. 

Rich Bennett 15:03
Going to have to. We're going to. 

Tina Davidson 15:05
Yeah. As and the way I write about it is really interesting. I write short little stories about my life. And then in between speaking of journals are my journals is it in my thirties where I'm both writing music, bringing up a daughter? But I'm going through therapy and reflecting on a lot of those things that the short story talks about. Not specifically, but generally, you know about, about my life story. And then the third chapter is a little story of my life. You know, I lived in Turkey for three years, and then then you go back to the memoir. So you're going sort of back it to the past and then to the present all the time. And gradually the space between that becomes less and less. And this that the two different kinds of writings start to merge, right? So you get both the child and the adult kind of reflecting or talking about. But something that happened to me. So the story is that I was born in Stockholm, Sweden in 1952. It's right at the end, the darkest part of the year there. And six months later, approximately, I'm not really sure. My mother placed me in a foster home in the southern part of Sweden with a family called the Elms Dose. They had three boys, the youngest of whom shall Love was only a couple of months older than I was. And so we were brought up as twins, and I lived in that family for three years. So I was there for three years until I was three and a half. And then one day this beautiful American came. She was a young professor. She had just gotten her Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania at that time. It was very unusual and she adopted me and brought me to America. She married shortly thereafter, and then I soon became the oldest of five. 

Rich Bennett 17:24
And wow. 

Tina Davidson 17:26
Yeah. So I always knew I was adopted. It wasn't talked about. 

I knew I couldn't talk to my mother about it. She was just too studious. You know how kids really know these things? You know, they they really know that, you know, this is not not a good thing. So and I always knew that while I was completely included in the family, nobody treated me any differently. I knew that like when they talked about ancestors, they were not my ancestors. And I had this little fantasy, you know, like I was this Swedish girl. And, you know, I, you know, my fam family couldn't take care of me. Or maybe they had, like, maybe I had been rescued from a desperate situation, you know, like Supernanny 

aunts. So and I think, you know, I felt secretly or without words that my position in the family was precarious. And I do think my experience as an adopted child is that you are not so sure if I was given up at six months and then was again given up at three and a half, what would happen when I was 12, you know, it wasn't completely a reliable were world, especially if you don't talk about it. 

Rich Bennett 18:57
Yeah. 

Tina Davidson 18:58
If it's, if it's ignored. So I think I compensated by being a sort of bright little cheerful, helpful, dutiful daughter. And I was the oldest. So that was I had a lot of caretaking to do. But when I was 21, I went back to Sweden. I actually happened to have a job taking care of a daughter of a family friend of ours. Oh, and I was there all summer. And just in the last week I thought, you know, I maybe I'll go to the adoption agency, you know, maybe I'll find out who my birth parents are. So I called them up and they said, Oh, I said, Oh, I was a little Swedish girl. I was adopted. And they said, No, we do not allow our Swedish nationals to be adopted outside of the country. We have a rule about that. We keep our children in Sweden, so we wouldn't have handled it. But why don't you just call back in a week and then maybe we'll have some information? So the day before I flew out, I called them again. They said, Oh my gosh, we have information. We never thought we did come down immediately. 

Rich Bennett 20:09
Wow. 

Tina Davidson 20:10
And when I got down there, the woman was very sweet. She asked me all these questions about, you know, my family. And and she had this letter and she said, this is a letter from your biological mother. And I was like, Oh, good. She said, Your biological mother is your adopted mother. Huh? Your your adopted mother is your biological mother. 

It's it's unusual. 

Rich Bennett 20:42
Wow. Okay. 

Tina Davidson 20:46
And I, I have to say. So I was 21. I told my mother immediately when I got back or very soon afterwards, and she cried and she said, Oh, I meant to tell you, but I couldn't find the words. And I said, Well, who knows? And she says, No one. I said, You mean, you know, my stepfather doesn't know. She said, No. I said, Well, I'd like to tell my brothers and sisters. And she said, no. She said, You know, this was something that I created. So in the fifties I wouldn't lose my job. Very smart. Very, very smart. You know, there was a real bias against women who had illegitimate children who and she would have lost her job or would have not gotten a job. But to put me back as an adoptive child was was very smart. How ever not telling me was extremely damaging. 

Rich Bennett 21:48
Yeah. 

Tina Davidson 21:50
And so I write in my book that we all have the right to privacy. We don't have to tell everything to everybody. And certainly parents don't tell a lot to their kids. However, to a secret, especially if it is relating to someone else, can be extremely damaging. And it was very damaging to me. It was very damaging to the whole family. And I think because she had held this secret for so long, she almost couldn't part with it. Yeah, she had almost become the secret. And, you know, she was the amazing woman who adopted this poor child from Sweden. She wasn't this lovelorn, 

devastated woman, you know, who had an illegitimate child. So, you know, I guess what I learned from that, what I take from it, from my life, is, 

you know, there you know, I am definitely private with my daughter and my stepchildren. But if there's a secret about them or I've, you know, at some point my mother could have said to me when I was 12, Hey, honey, let's talk. You know, I. I am your your I'm your biological mother. This is not something that I want you to talk about with others. You know, because of my job situation. But I want you to know that you are my daughter. That I claim you, that I call you, that I name you. And. But she was not able to do that. So that was a lot of, 

I think, how I processed it as a child, because I didn't have words. I was actually to have pretty deep depressions and I didn't know what they were. Right. I also did a lot of dissociating, which is if if something uncomfortable comes up, you know, you sort of leave your mind there. It's like you have a back door and you leave. And I, I would particularly with my depressions, I would feel like I would sort of suddenly wake up like six months later. I know I wasn't really I was awake all the time, but there was a level of 

understanding. It was sort of like I saw I was engaged with life from from the back room or from behind some material. So I had to do a lot of work. You know, I think depressions were really I really had a hold of me. It it they were pretty serious depressions. And I have to say that I've been very fortunate that I don't have clinical depression, So not chemically induced. So after a lot of therapy and I'm talking a lot of therapy, years of therapy, I would say that I'm completely depression free. Good. Because and if I if I go into, it's more like a funk and then I immediately am able to say, wait a minute, you're in a funk. What what triggered this? Let's go back. Let's think. What was the moment that you started to feel this? What was the thing that and let's deal with it. 

So I do feel myself to be extremely fortunate that that the therapy has really done such a good job for me. 

Rich Bennett 25:48
Yeah. And you say you were three and a half when she adopted you? 

Tina Davidson 25:53
Yes. 

Rich Bennett 25:54
Imagine if somebody else would have adopted you even sooner. Number one, we probably wouldn't be sitting here talking now and well. 

Tina Davidson 26:04
Or if I had stayed with her family, you know. Yeah. Interesting. There there's another big piece of this that I didn't realize. And it really hit me as I started doing therapy about Sweden 

was that at three and a half my Swedish mother and father and my brothers and sisters were my family. 

Rich Bennett 26:30
Yeah. 

Tina Davidson 26:31
And when I left, it was like a bomb had gone off and they all died for me. And because I couldn't feel like I could talk to my mom about it, I had no way of accessing grief. Yeah, Loss of my entire family and my home and my city and my country and my language because I only spoke Swedish at that point. Now, to be truthful, in the fifties, people didn't have the awareness and the language to talk to their children. You know, we didn't do a lot of, you know, So I really, you know, I really have to be understanding about that. But and it is a real lesson to us parents to understand that even if your child is not talking about it, they may feel it. Yeah. And if they could maybe see pictures about their loved ones, you know, engage in a conversation about their loved ones, draw pictures, write letters, because this happens to kids all the time. They're in a foster situation. Even with it, it's grandma. 

Rich Bennett 27:44
Mm. 

Tina Davidson 27:45
And that grandma is their life, you know? And then the loss of that environment is huge. 

We now have better tools to help children. 

Rich Bennett 27:59
Yes. 

Yes. Actually. Have you? 

I mean, it's been several years, but have you ever been able to connect with your foster family again? 

Tina Davidson 28:16
Oh, absolutely. So when I was going through this and suddenly realizing the enormous loss to me of this family, I actually called my mother and I said, do you have any connection with them? And she said, no. She said, Oh, call the operator. And at that point you could call the international operator. And they would, yeah. 

And they said, Oh, in that town there is nobody by that last name. However, very close to that town is a young man whose last name is Tombstone. Do you want me to give you that number? And I called them up and I said, Hi, my name is Tina. I used to live with your family and he had been born right after I left. So a year after I left. And he said, I have heard about you all my life. They have always told stories about you. And it turned out that my Swedish mother was so upset about, I don't think she ever thought my mother was going to come back. She thought that she could adopt me. Right. It just never occurred to her. She was so profoundly grief struck that she and her husband decided to have another child immediately and they had another boy. So they're four boys. And I said, Well, you know where is Solveig? And he said, sadly. So this was I was 33. So 30 years ago I had left. He said she died a couple of months ago. 

Rich Bennett 29:59
Oh, God. 

Tina Davidson 30:00
Wow. Wow. Oh, wow. Do you know, 30 years. And she died three months ago. 

So when my daughter was three, I spent some time in Sweden connecting with the family. I wanted to go and see. What was it like to be in Sweden with them? With my child the same age, right. That's when I left. So she was about three and a half. 

And then when she was ten, we spent about a month living in Sweden and I really connected to that. This foster brother that was my age with show Off. And he would just tell me, he said, Well, you were the ringleader. He just was always ordering me around. You were. And you were always getting into trouble. 

Rich Bennett 30:53
You. 

Tina Davidson 30:54
You I think I was totally adored as the little girl of the family. You know, just totally. And in that sense, it or maybe it was the first visit I was at a family gathering with all the the brothers and their wives. And one of the wives came up to me with this small little box. And she said, So thank you. Your foster mother gave this to me when my daughter was born, and I opened it up and there were two little dresses that Solvang always saved of mine 

that I had. So wow was clearly a huge loss for me. It was a huge loss, Yeah. So big. And one of the things that therapy and that's sort of going through all of this has uncovered for me is that I don't think any of that love that Sofia gave me was ever wasted or lost. Yeah. And I was after I got over some of the grief, I was really able to feel that love and. And that protection. Good. Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 32:09
So when you in your book Let your Heart Be Broken, 

when you were writing that, was it like therapy for you as well? 

Tina Davidson 32:23
Yes, Yes and no. And yes. 

Rich Bennett 32:27
Okay. This chapter was this chapter was this chapter was I? 

Tina Davidson 32:34
I think, you know, I was trying to be very careful because there were many, many years that my mother and I were didn't have a good relationship at all. And it took a lot of work for me to feel 

loving towards her or calm towards her or not or not just angry. I would say forgiveness helped me a lot and I want to say also that forgiveness for me, it doesn't make everything right. It doesn't restore what you felt you lost. Right. At least for me. But it did bring me to kindness. It did bring me to be able to be with my mother and not be just rigidly angry, especially as she got older and she needed care. I was able to participate. I wasn't my my brother was really the main caretaker, but I could participate and be kind and loving towards her. And that was a huge victory. Just just a huge victory. 

Writing things down. Well, it's such an interesting process. First of all, I think when you write things down for me, I am then able to then go back and read it and then maybe dig a little bit deeper. 

Writing things down also helps clarify things to my to me that I didn't really know as well. 

Like I write in my book about how music was sort of my safe place. I never thought of it that way as I was growing up or being right, but as I was writing about it, I was thinking, You know what? What draws me to it? And I hear, I don't know if you can hear my dog. Yeah, I hear, Oh, my little Isabella's got something going on in this street she's not sure about. 

So. 

So I had actually never thought of it that way. But when I started to write about it, I realized that perhaps music was a way of me finding a safe space in my life and that maybe music was a little bit like dissociation. Dissociation is like the reality is too scary. I have to put myself in a protective place. I'm going to pull myself back. It's like you're having an argument with here with somebody and you say, Time out. 

Rich Bennett 35:19
Right? 

Tina Davidson 35:20
Time out. You put yourself in a safe place. And I'm wondering if music wasn't also a safe place for me and that was part of what I loved about it, was that it afforded me, you know, nobody bothered me when I was practicing. You know, they were like going, Oh, good, she's practicing that. And it's a little bit like, I don't know, kids when they read. I think they also find that, you know, they're part of the story. They're away from their own life. Maybe you could even consider, you know, all this gaming as the kind of same thing. It's that you put yourself in a safe place that is away from the hubbub. You take. You sort of relax. The only trouble with any of this is that if you're not dealing with the outside stuff, you're losing a sense of connection when you go hide. And that's the problem with dissociation, is it becomes a coping skill. Something is upsetting to you. I'm going to go take myself away. I'm not going to talk to you. I'm not going to figure it out. I think if there if you have major trauma, it's it's a very good move. But in day to day interaction, it's not necessarily the best coping skill. Yeah, a lot of times saved you as a child from abuse. You know, your way of coping with abuse is not a good coping skill as an adult. So as an adult, to find out what the problem is, to understand it, to work with it, to meet it 

is a much better strategy than avoiding it. 

Rich Bennett 37:02
Yeah. 

Tina Davidson 37:04
Although as a child, avoiding it is. It's a really good strategy 

because, you know, if there's somebody scary out there that's threatening you, make yourself safe, you know? Yeah, get away from them. So. So what we learn in childhood is not necessarily the best thing as an adult. And we always have to really think that through and balance it by then. We're getting back to music, I think, or getting back to the idea of writing something down. I don't think I realized it until I wrote it down. 

Rich Bennett 37:38
Yeah. 

Tina Davidson 37:39
Which was I find really interesting. 

So long, long answer. 

Rich Bennett 37:46
That's okay. Actually. Were there moments of, say, self-examination that change how you view your past compositions or your journey as a composer? When you were writing the book? 

Tina Davidson 38:00
Not really, because I was using journals that were older. 

That's a really interesting question. I do think, you know, I've been writing music for 45 years. I do think that the first ten years of my composing music before I started really dealing with any of my personal life, I felt I wasn't very connected to it. I felt like I was writing it, but it didn't seem to be quite about me. Mm hmm. When my daughter was born, and I always think of her as kind of a turning point as and as a great opportunity. I was writing a cello concerto for cello and orchestra, and the title of it was called Blood Memory. The idea that in our Blood is this memory, maybe even the memory of past generations, that the past generations have an effect on us, but are relatedness, are blood relatedness to others. So it was called blood memory, a long quiet after the call. So that that that the memories of the past or the relatives of the past kind of call out to us at times. And we receive messages from the past you know, through our parents, you know, their parents to their parents. 

So and that was the first piece that I thought, oh, I really connect to this. This is about me. So then I would say the second 20, ten years of composing music was really about my growing understanding of myself and my past. And I have pieces like Dark Child Sings, which is a cello quartet, and it was really about I usually take the title and sort of hold it in my head. I'm not writing music about it, but with it I think write with that idea and that idea of allowing that 

darkness to speak and have a place to go so it can also move on and kind of become lighter. And then I had a whole piece for multiple saxophones called Transparent, which is sort of about those children who are victims, but you don't see them as victims, that they're hiding their victimhood. And towards the end of that ten period, a ten year period, I started to feel like I wanted to move into a more connected place. And I started being interested in being connected to things beyond me. So you might call it God or you might call it energy, or you might call it the sky, or you might call it the higher power, right? Whatever you. So I wanted to develop a relationship to that and I started writing music about it. I have a piece called The Light of Angels, which is according to both Christian and Jewish traditions, the angels dance perpetually without stopping in their delight and joy of being with God. And it's like, Oh, can you imagine if you were so filled with the delight of of being that all you could do was to dance perpetually, You know, without stopping. So I wanted to, you know, write a piece about that. I have a piece called It Is My Heart Singing, which is just this ability to express my again, my joy and my energy. What else? Oh, I have a piece called Celeste Your Turnings. I mean, I just, you know, I just kept on exploring this, my personal relationship with a bigger thing. I have a piece that's going to be recorded actually in 

September. It's called Barefoot. And it is about that idea that you're outside and your feet are touching the earth and, you know, sort of having this wonderful relationship with the earth. And in the Bible there is the burning bush, and he has to take off his shoes and become barefoot in in relationship to God. So when you heat to be with God, he had to take off his shoes. And I thought, oh, you know, to sort of to feel that ground with being with God. And I'm not a religious person, I'm not a practicing Christian, but I do have a very deep sense of connection. 

Rich Bennett 42:51
Yeah. 

Tina Davidson 42:52
With something that I can't name. 

Now, I would say in these last ten years, maybe I am becoming more personal. My titles are getting shorter. 

They are 

becoming about certain kinds of feelings. I wrote a piece called We Pan EPA, and it's the old English for Weeping, and that was my the second after my second divorce. It was sort of my feelings about my second divorce. I have a piece called Leap Lap, which is about the pandemic and how we kind of had to leap into this very uncertain time where we didn't know what was going on. And I have a piece called Hum, which is about, oh, I don't know, when I was a child, people used to hum, now used to whistle. They used to whistle all the time. Yeah. And you'd be walking down the street and you could hear a little whistle or a little hum. And that kind of intimacy of self-expression. Yeah. So that that piece is for cello and piano. And again, I just hold that word in my head while I'm composing and I'm not describing it. I'm just kind of being with that. I can't tell you that the piece is about humming, but I could just tell you that's what I do, actually. 

Rich Bennett 44:22
So with your with your compositions, I love the titles, but I think this is where a lot of people get lost. I guess you could say a song or a composition when you put your is how do you tell the meaning of the songs behind the titles? Because to me, that would make me think of that while listening to it. Otherwise you're just 

listening to it. You don't know the meaning behind the song. Does that make sense? What I'm saying? 

Tina Davidson 44:58
Yes. So I go this way. I often feel that when I compose, I'm always in a state of collaborating with others and to collaborate with music. A lot of times it's very passive. It does exactly what I want and there are other times where my music fights me. It's just not going to stay put. And in fact I write the notes are wandering away. I'm like going, Where are you going, guys? They go, Yeah, I'm not here. Okay. 

Rich Bennett 45:26
Yeah, we need a break. 

Tina Davidson 45:27
Right? And then I collaborate. So when I mean that is that there are things that I know and there are things that I don't know. There are things that I go, Huh? This is not exactly the way I wanted it to go. That this was not in my mind, but I'm going to go with this. And that's what I mean when I collaborate with the music, okay? And then I collaborate with the performers. They actually have to live in my music. They have to sort of put my music on like clothing, and they kind of have to feel if it fits and feel it in. So I'm always collaborating with them to not get my piece the way I think it should be. But how we both think it should be. It's kind of a shared understanding and a lot of times I was just up at a festival and this poor trio was sort of struggling with my music. It was my music can be a little tricky rhythmically. So and they have exhausted. They've been performing two weeks in a row and they hadn't enough time to practice. And they're really kind of discouraged. And I said, You know, I think you should just I just forget about the notes So their mistakes, who cares? Yeah, the music, play the music and they said, okay, and we're going to practice a little more so and, and in the performance they said, Oh, we got lost. I said, Oh, I don't think anybody heard it. I said, I noticed there was a little, you know, somebody came here, you know, the piece was here, but somebody was like a little late or a little early. Totally doesn't matter. Yeah, never matters. So that to me is collaborating with them. And then I think the performers collaborate with the audience, which gets back to your question, there's something that happens between the performers energy and the listeners Energy. Oh yeah, that is so important. And so it's part of the wonderful process of of performing and being at a live concert. 

So I always in the program notes, write what I write. You know, I write briefly. You know, 

this piece was called I Hear the Mermaid Singing. And it really was at a point where I was trying to understand my my female self and the mermaids are such a symbol of sort of femaleness, but usually it's to lure sailors to their death. You know, there is always write in in historical oil, you know, in classical literature. It's, you know, these these mermaids, you know, this femaleness is going to drown all the sailors. And I said, no, this for me, let's rewrite this. The mermaids are about the sort of intuitive female qualities, and they're very they're in the water and it's their element and they know about the water. They're very comfortable. So I agree with that. And then ultimately, you know, the music is the music. Yeah. You know, it has to it has to speak to the audience. It has to you know, the words that I describe it are kind of me. You know, it's it's a good starting point, but it's not the journey yet. 

Rich Bennett 49:00
And the other thing is, too, because I had another person on not too long ago, crystal ball cruising. And one of the things because he wrote the music for a movie that he put out and we are talking about the one song and I told him what it meant to me, which was completely different from what he was writing it about. But he said he understood how they and I do believe music, even even being the composer, sometimes can take a different meaning years down the road. 

Tina Davidson 49:35
Well, and again, I am not writing music, so that's a listener gets me. I am writing music so the listener gets themselves. 

Rich Bennett 49:48
Well, that's I mean, even for the listeners to even the listener, you know, a song. I mean, God, years ago when I was younger, back in high school, I was a metalhead and I could not. There's a bunch of bands I could not stand. But now when I listen to a lot of those songs, which I did not like back then, I'll listen to them then it's like, Oh, that is actually very good. Prime example is the Beatles. You know, when I saw that movie, the documentary Get Back and the way they writing the songs, they gave me a whole new love for not just the music, but how they wrote it. 

Tina Davidson 50:27
Right. And writing those melodies, those beautiful melodies is, Oh, yeah, it's it's not easy. Not easy at all to write a beautiful melody. Yeah, Well, and again, you know, I, I just own the work when it's in my studio. When it goes to the performers, it's no longer mine in that strict sense. And when it goes to the performers, I always want them to get themselves. I never want them to know more about me. That's not right. Who cares about me? I think what I do, 

what's important is that I speak my truth to you. Yeah. And then you go, Oh, that's cool. Oh, I. I almost understand something more about the world I live in, or I understand something more about myself. Or. Or maybe just. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. 

Rich Bennett 51:24
Actually, which composers are artists, whether it be past or present, have actually influenced your musical journey? 

Tina Davidson 51:33
You know, that's a that's always a very, very interesting 

question you know, there is a whole lot of an American contemporary music that is not performed at all. The major orchestras and ensembles are always playing music of of a European tradition. Yeah, and but there's Carl Ruggles, Charles Ives, Henry Cowell. 

And I really feel that 

if someone were to ask me what tradition I come out of, I would hope that they would say out of the American music tradition, which is 

it's not disconnected from the Western music tradition, but it's more experimental, it's more it takes more risks. 

And I, I hope someday that the major orchestras will start to honor. Ah, American contemporary music. 

Rich Bennett 52:46
I agree with you 110% there. Yeah. 

Tina Davidson 52:50
So I love some of that music just because you were kind of craggy and, you know, they weren't interested in fitting in and they just wrote music that they liked and that they felt was important. And I really love that that spirit. I also love the spirit of some composers who have really done quite well. So Philip Glass and Steve Reich, they did also did not fit into the sort of classical music tradition, and nobody would perform their music. And so they said, okay, I'm going to create my own band. And they really started this idea that you create, your own ensemble that performs and records and makes your music and takes your music on the road just like a regular, you know, rock and roll band and that was very influential for the contemporary music scene that we we created our own lack of dependence. We didn't have to depend upon the orchestras, right? And the relationship between experimental contemporary music and movies is very fluid. And you will most likely see here a lot of movie composers, for lack of a better word, stealing, stealing kinds of musical e o ways of music approaching music, certainly. So anyway, it's interesting, I think that for classical music, because it's related to movies, it's actually in the listeners ear. 

Rich Bennett 54:31
Yeah. 

Tina Davidson 54:33
Sort of through this back door. Now, of course, you can't protect that kind of intellectual property. You can't protect, say, Oh, this is the way I started writing and you're copying me. And so you can't do that. You can't protect intellectual property that way. You can't protect a piece of music. But man, they're only they're very limited notes that go into scale. I can't believe how many original pieces we've created out of those very few notes. And of course, there's always going to be overlap in some sort of way. And I love the the most recent lawsuit against is was that Ed Sheeran? 

Rich Bennett 55:23
Oh, I don't know. I don't even watch the news yet. 

Tina Davidson 55:25
So I know that was really interesting because I think what he was saying is they were trying to say that his chord progression that he used was their intellectual property. And that's like, yeah, we'd have to stop writing music at that point. You know, you just so. And Ed Sheeran won his lawsuit. 

Rich Bennett 55:49
So you I'm waiting for somebody to come have a lawsuit saying that Frank Zappa copied them or something. It's like, I don't think so. 

Tina Davidson 55:58
I don't think so. Yeah. No. Zappa was a very interesting crossover musician from the rock and roll world and really influential the contemporary music world I have. 

Rich Bennett 56:11
So there's a friend of mine that actually found it and directs the Susquehanna Symphony Orchestra here, and I used to get him on the show, and I would always tell I was like, Sheldon, when are you guys going to do some of Frank Zappa's classical pieces? And he always says, There's no way. It's it's not possible. He he was way before his time. And I think the London Symphony Orchestra actually did some of his work. 

Tina Davidson 56:40
Yeah. He has a piece called Black Page. Oh, I don't. Oh, yeah, Yeah. And I know that the music ensemble that I was with for years performed that regularly. I don't remember. 

Rich Bennett 56:51
Really? 

Tina Davidson 56:51
Yeah. Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 56:53
It's just I love. Listen, I mean, his. Yeah, the stuff with the band, okay? But his when it comes to his orchestra stuff, I'm just blown away by it real quick because I'm looking at the time here. Tell everybody the name of the book where they can get the book, where they can listen to your wonderful scores at you especially, and the other information as far as contacting you, getting you to come out and play or whatever. 

Tina Davidson 57:23
Yeah, so I'm super easy to get in touch with. It's Tina Davidson dot com. You can write to me on my website super easy. Just take my name, plug it and put it a dot com on the end. And there you are. My book is called Let Your Heart be Broken Life and Music from a Classical Composer. You can order it on Barnes Noble's, can order it from Amazon, 

then you can listen to my music basically on any of the, you know, Apple Music, SoundCloud, Amazon music. It's Spotify. Absolutely. And you can go on SoundCloud, on SoundCloud, you can actually hear excerpts of pieces that aren't perhaps recorded. Oh, really? Yeah, You can hear a little bit more of of my music on SoundCloud. And I think, again, it's just you go on SoundCloud and look up Tina Davidson I think that's how you do it, right? I know. 

Rich Bennett 58:23
I said. 

Tina Davidson 58:24
Yeah, SoundCloud is a great resource. Yeah, a lot of composers post their work on there. That's not recorded. So that's that's a great resource. And sometimes you can only hear an excerpt of a piece, 

but you know, you can always write the composer and say, Hey, can I listen to the whole thing? Yeah, I'm sure the composer would say, Yeah, sure. 

Rich Bennett 58:48
Yeah, yeah. Because they want feedback and. 

Tina Davidson 58:50
Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 58:50
The feedback for all of you listening when you order Tina's book and after you read it, make sure you leave a full review of the book. 

Tina Davidson 59:03
I think that's. 

Rich Bennett 59:04
Just going to help increase sales even more. So I like to ask everybody, well, I don't want to say everybody started, maybe not even a year ago. You've been on several interviews already. 

And I just I like throwing this question out. Out of all the shows you've been on, is there anything that a host has never asked you that you wish they would have asked you? And if so, what would that question be? And what would your answer. 

Tina Davidson 59:36
My dog's names? No, I, 

Isabella, Isabella and Max, 

I think. Oh, I don't know if I have a direct answer for that. But one of the things that I'm doing a lot of thinking about right now is aging and the creative process. What happens to your creative process, especially if you've been motivated to write about the important things in your life, maybe trauma, maybe your relationships, maybe. 

And a lot of that has sort of come to rest is is not as pressing. 

So I'm just fascinated what happens to the creative process when you get into your sixties and seventies and those eight, those are a lot about creating legacy, you know, maybe taking care of your old works. And I do think that writing my book was very important in terms of sort of getting a handle on my life as a whole, right. And hoping that I had something relevant to say to others. And, you know, I wouldn't have published it if somebody had said to me, Oh, yeah, there was, you know, because a lot of us can write our life stories, but it's it's not that interesting or it's interesting, but it's not written in a way that's compelling. Right? So I, I, I'm really interested also, like, what happens when an artist moves from one art form to another. 

So so I think, yeah, those might be interesting questions. 

Rich Bennett 1:01:30
Well, you know what this means then, right? 

Tina Davidson 1:01:32
Oh yeah. This. 

Rich Bennett 1:01:34
So this means you're going to have to come on another episode and I hope you still got the link to the book. If not, just email me, I'll send it to you because I would like to talk about that. Yeah. And also what I will really love to talk actually, that would be the next episode. Age and composing, because tone meant what you just said, but also what you're doing with kids, with young composers. I would love to talk about that as well. 

Tina Davidson 1:02:04
I would love to to because that is also about creating a legacy. And the legacy is that other people are interested in something that you passionately love. 

Rich Bennett 1:02:15
There we go to the next episode we record is going to be the legacy Tina Davidson's legacy. Is that right? 

Tina Davidson 1:02:23
Legacy and aging. 

Rich Bennett 1:02:26
There we go. That works. Tina, thank you so much. It's been a true pleasure and hey, give Isabel and Max a hug for me. 

Tina Davidson 1:02:34
Oh, for sure. I will definitely do that. 

Rich Bennett 1:02:38
And if you so. 

Tina Davidson 1:02:39
Much. 

Rich Bennett 1:02:40
If you ever get down to Harford County, hit me up. We'll have to do lunch. 

Tina Davidson 1:02:44
Absolutely. 

Rich Bennett 1:02:45
Take care. Thanks.