Tina Davidson

Tina Davidson, a highly regarded American composer, creates music that stands out for its emotional depth and lyrical dignity. Lauded for her authentic voice, the New York Times praised her “vivid ear for harmony and colors.”  OperaNews called her works, “transfigured beauty,” and the Philadelphia Inquirer writes that she writes “real music, with structure, mood, novelty and harmonic sophistication – with haunting melodies that grow out of complex, repetitive rhythms.” 

​

Over her forty-five-year career, Davidson has been commissioned by well-known ensembles such as National Symphony Orchestra, OperaDelaware, Roanoke Symphony, VocalEssence, Kronos Quartet, Cassatt Quartet, and public television (WHYY-TV). Her music has been widely performed by many orchestras and ensembles, including The Philadelphia Orchestra, American Composers Orchestra, St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, Relâche Ensemble, and Orchestra 2001. 

​

Davidson was commissioned by Grammy Award-winning violinist Hilary Hahn as part of her 27 Encore project. The work, Blue Curve of the Earth, was released on Deutsche Grammaphone in 2013, and again in 2018 on Hahn’s new album, Retrospective.

Long-term residencies play a major role in Ms Davidson’s career. As composer-in-residence with the Fleisher Art Memorial (1998-2001), she was commissioned to write for the Cassatt Quartet, Voces Novae et Antiquae, and members of the Philadelphia Orchestra. She also created the city-wide Young Composers program to teach inner city children how to write music through instrument building, improvisation, and graphic notation. She was composer-in-residence as part of the innovative Meet The Composer “New Residencies” with OperaDelaware, the Newark Symphony and the YWCA in Delaware (1994-97). During this residency, she wrote the critically acclaimed full-length opera, Billy and Zelda, as well as created community partner programs for homeless women, and with students at a local elementary school. 

​

The recipient of numerous prestigious grants and fellowships, Davidson was the first classical composer to receive a $50,000 Pew Fellowship. She has been awarded four Artist’s Fellowships from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, CAP grants from the American Music Center and numerous Meet the Composer grants. Her work, Transparent Victims, was selected by the American Public Radio as part of the International Rostrum of Composers, held at the UNESCO headquarters in Paris.

Ms. Davidson’s music can be heard on Deutsche Grammophon, Albany Records, CRI, Mikrokosmik, Callisto, and Opus One recording labels. Her second solo compact disc, “It is My Heart Singing,” was released on Albany Records and features three works for strings performed by the Cassatt Quartet. “I Hear the Mermaids Singing” was released on CRI’s Emergency Music label and includes six of her chamber works. Her work, Blue Curve of the Earth, recorded by Hilary Hahn, was released on Deutsche Grammophon. 

​

Tina Davidson was born in Stockholm, Sweden and grew up in Oneonta, NY and Pittsburgh, PA. She received her BA in piano and composition from Bennington College in 1976 where she studied with Henry Brant, Louis Calabro, Vivian Fine and Lionel Nowak. She founded the Philadelphia Chapter of the American Composers Forum and served as its director from 1999-2001. She was president of the New Music Alliance, a national organization, which has been responsible for the New Music America Festivals. She organized a nation-wide festival entitled “New Music Across America,” which ran in 18 cities in the U.S., Canada, and Europe. In 1992 she wrote a widely-circulated article on women in music for Ms Magazine. 

​

Her memoir, Let Your Heart Be Broken, Life and Music from a Classical Composer (2023), is now available from Boyle & Dalton. Her memoir traces her extraordinary life in equally lyrical language, juxtaposing memories, journal entries, notes on compositions in progress, and insights into the life of an artist – and a mother – at work. 

​

Tina Davidson lives in central Pennsylvania.