Let Your Heart Be Broken
Life and Music from a Classical Composer
Published by Boyle & Dalton Release Date: March 15, 2023
Order: https://www.amazon.com/Let-Your-Heart-Broken-Classical/dp/1633376966/?fbclid=IwAR3BU-_UMhxivpy4A3mnPFttpYpiyLaeRdD0HHQnsVZwUjYeE7K2Lshse6M
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“Let Your Heart Be Broken is a consummate read in its entirety, exploring with uncommon sensitivity and poetic insight the fundamentals of love, forgiveness, creativity, and what it takes to emerge from the inner darkness into a vast vista of light, rooted in the life-tested truth that “we are, in the end, a measure of the love we leave behind.” – Maria Popova, The Marginalian
“With this memoir, Tina Davidson accomplishes something much more difficult, because it goes deeper into the soul: conveying what goes on inside when an artist – one particular artist – is creating the work, the work that both reveals herself, and escapes to become the world’s, taking on a different meaning for every listener.” – Jon Sobel, Blogcritic
Listen to a Playlist of Music included in Davidson’s Memoir: https://bit.ly/LetYourHeartBeBrokenPlaylist
Composer and author Tina Davidson’s memoir, Let Your Heart Be Broken, published by Boyle & Dalton, is now available. 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 has praised her “vivid ear for harmony and colors.” 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.
“Rarely does a composer tie together life events and inner creative propulsion in a narrative that speaks directly to their audience. Ms. Davidson’s music is lyrical and vulnerable, as is her voice in words. Her book will allow listeners and musicians alike to build their own connections to Ms. Davidson’s work in all of its forms.” – Hilary Hahn, Violinist and Grammy Winner
Tina Davidson was three-and-a-half when she was adopted from her foster home in Sweden by a visiting American professor. Soon she is the oldest of five children, living with her mother and stepfather in Turkey, Germany, and Israel. She studies music and becomes a prolific pianist and composer.
But something about her birth remains unnamed and hidden. When she returns to Sweden, she contacts the Swedish adoption agency. “Come,” says the voice on the phone, “I have information for you.”
Along her life journey, Davidson meets Ernest Hemingway and Carl Sandburg, survives an attack by nomads in Turkey, and learns her birth father is a world-famous scientist.
“Whether she is writing about the hauntings of childhood or the day-to-day practical work of a leading American composer, Tina Davidson writes with precision and poetry, bringing us into her remarkable life.” – Tim Page, Pulitzer Prize-winning music writer
Davidson writes, “To create this memoir, I relied heavily on my memory, family stories of my childhood, and pulled from my journals, editing for clarity. These I piece together side by side like patchwork – my growing up next to my artistic process, my evolving understanding of my life and origins next to the music I create. Both
are an act of placing and grounding. Writing, however, is more vulnerable, truer to life’s story telling. Composing is in a world of its own – both emotion and energy; I camouflage myself, wrap myself in a language that has no direct translation. Writing reveals me naked.”
Throughout, there is the thread of music, an ebb and a crescendo of a journey out of the past and into the present, through darkness and into the light. Compositions highlighted in Davidson’s astounding memoir include her pieces It Is My Heart Singing for string quartet and piano (1996); Fire on the Mountain for vibraphone, marimba, and piano (1993); I Hear the Mermaids Singing for violin, cello, and piano (1990); Bleached Thread, Sister Thread for string quartet (1991); Cassandra Sings, written for the Kronos Quartet in 1989; and many more.
Read more excerpts of Let Your Heart Be Broken: http://www.tinadavidson.com/blog/
More about Tina Davidson:
Opera News describes Tina Davidson’s music as, “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 In 27 Pieces project. The work, Blue Curve of the Earth, was released on Deutsche Grammophon in 2013, and again in 2018 on Hahn’s new album, Retrospective.
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.
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. She lives in central Pennsylvania.
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