The Selkie Boy was commissioned and premiered by the Greater Twin Cities Youth Symphonies in 1991. The text for the orchestral piece is based on an old Scottish folk-tale about Selkies, or seals. The story tells about a little boy named Willie, who is found on the beach of the Orkney Islands and is adopted by a large family. Somehow he never feels like he belongs and longs for the sea and the selkies. Through the help of a little girl he meets, he learns that the selkies are magical folk -- changelings, who can shed their skins and walk on the earth. If, however, they lose their skins, they cannot go back to their seal life. By returning to the ocean and weeping seven tears into the water, Willie is able to speak to the selkies and finds out his true identity.

The Selkie Boy is ideal for all audiences in its warm account of self-realization and acceptance. Willie's journey is the journey that we all take on the path to finding our true selves. Through the skillful weaving of text and sound, Davidson conveys an intimate and evocative piece. Beautifully orchestrated with delicate sound effects, lovely melodies, and jazzy rhythms, the piece ends in a warm, emotional climax.

The work can be performed with orchestra or narration alone, or can be linked with performance groups such as the Mum Puppettheater. For the Philadelphia Orchestra performances, Mum created a delightful context for The Selkie Boy. Founded in 1985 by Robert Smythe, Mum uses masks and everyday objects to tell stories without dialogue relying heavily on their audiences' imagination. The Selkie Boy is 18 minutes long, and comes complete with lesson plans for school and community outreach.

"The building was full with beautiful music waves." - Angela, age 11
"The Selkie Boy was best of all." - Ryan C., age 9
"I liked the drums. The sound has real loud but then when they showed where there was a boy who lost his skin then later he found his skin, the sound was very soft." - Frank, Age 9

Create art projects and crafts

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Mural Arts, Philadelphia's First Music Wall

Recently, Tina Davidson collaborated with muralist Barbara Smolen to create Philadelphia's First "Music Wall." Commissioned by the Mural Arts Program, Davidson worked with Smolen to create a mural that incorporated musical ideas and components in the mural painting. Situated at the corner of Frankford and Susquehanna Avenues in the Kensington section of Philadelphia, the mural depicts an abstract cityscape with a musical staff threading in and out of the windows. Davidson built three sets of tubular chimes out of copper plumbing tubing that hang from the windows of the houses.

In addition, Davidson worked in weekly sessions at the local Hackett Elementary School, teaching Mrs. Tinney's third grade class her Young Composers program. They created their own instruments and original compositions using graphic notation and wrote poetry that expressed their feelings about music. Using ideas from over 30 poems, Ms Davidson developed the text for a song called Music is the Sound. The Hackett Elementary School Choir performed the work several times, including at the mural's dedication ceremony. The music for the song was inscribed on the mural.
"The children here tend to grow up in this neighborhood. Now they can grow up seeing what they helped create." - Patricia Magee, Principal at Hackett Elementary School praising the mural and the artists' interaction with the children

"The mural is an abstract silhouette of the city. It is framed by copper wind chimes. The music from the children's song was painted across the mural. As the wind blew and the children sang, the chimes and a keyboard provided a musical background." - The Philadelphia Inquirer

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Billy and Zelda, Opera Theater Premiere and Review

Billy and Zelda is a passionate, melodic opera-theater piece which explores the rich life of relationships between children and their parents; it tells the story of two children lost in death and found by love. Under the "blue moon, over the curve of the horizon" we are called to two households, on that rare occasion when two full moons appear in one month. In one house, the Neighbor, full of the stirrings of a new life in her body comes to visit Clara, and older woman burdened by ghosts of the past. Next door, the narrator comes to clean her dead Uncle's house, only to find that a child ghost is haunting the place. As both women open themselves up to the stories of Billy and Zelda, they learn about themselves and their own lives.

"Capping composer Tina Davidson's three-year residency, OperaDelaware elivened the world premiere of her chamber opera, Billy and Zelda. This intimate piece, set to lyrics and script by the composer's sisters Eva and Lale, transfixed the audience seated on the stage of the Grand Opera House (Dec. 11)."

Davidson's complex and rich work uses elements of both opera and theater, intertwining contrasting stories about Billy, a young man killed in war, and Zelda, a little girl who has died of pnemonia. The story of Billy is told all in song, with a cast of five singers, while the story of Zelda is acted by the Neighbor, accompanied by a solo cello that represents the spririt of the lost child.

"More reflective than dramatic, Davidson's work unlocks family secrets as a Narrator and Neighbor pry loose long-supressed memories. In Zelda, a young woman discovers that her family's deserted farmhouse is haunted by the ghost of a little girl. Accompanied by improvised cello, the narrator slowly unravels the mystery of Zelda's death and, in the climactic scene, becomes the child whose tragic death seals her family's silence. In the more complex portrayal of Billy's death, a pregnant Neighbor inadvertently brings to light the grief that still haunts the young man's mother. Accompanied by string quartet and marimba, the characters move back and forth from the present to the past as the tensions between the boy's parents and his experiences in war are exploited. At the end, the two stories merge in a lullaby of transfiguring beauty."

Davidson does not flinch from revealing the power and the intensity of what is perhaps our greatest love affair -- that with our children. It is a love that endures through time as if it were yesterday, and that knows no safety from loss. Her lyrical music brings these stories to a subtle and climactic conclusion.

"These quiet pieces draw subtly shaded music from Davidson, whose score is fillled with gracious melodies, tinged with tender sadness. Zelda's haunting death narrative is punctuated by abrasive musical effects improvised by the cellist. Billy unfolds in a series of poems, sung in aria and ensemble. Only a few spoken exchanges - there are no recitatives - interrupt the lyrical progress of the piece. Billy reaches a musical climax in the parents' grief-stricken outbursts that find resolution in the lullaby for ensemble voices, whose lines float serenely over the strings."

Billy and Zelda was commissioned by OperaDelaware as part of Tina Davidson's three-year Meet the Composer residency. The work was premiered on December 11-13, 1998 at the Grand Opera House in Wilmington, Delaware.

"OperaDelaware brought this fascinating piece to the stage in a strong production by Ben Levit. The action unfolded succinctly on a stage divided into two contiguous playing spaces. Leland P. Kimball III's simple set - cutouts of a door and window with a glowing moon and bare-branched tree for Zelda, a dining area surrounded by stairs and ramp for Billy - provided a neat backdrop for the action. "

In a unique collaboration, Davidson worked with her two sisters, poet Eva Davidson and writer Lale Davidson to create the libretto. Surrounded by Eva Davidson's delicate poetry about the intricacies of human relationships, and coupled with Lale Davidson's elegant prose, Davidson's music illuminates an inner dimension of family relationships. The work is scored for five principal singers, actresses and a chorus of three men, cello, string quartet, marimba and bass drum.

"Drawing some finely shaded playing from the Elixir String Quartet and percussionist Harvey Price, conductor Alan Johnson shaped an expressive performace. In Zelda, Martha Slater's vivid spoken narration received eloquent support from cellist Mary Wooten. In Billy, Michelle Wright's smooth mezzo left a lovely imprint on the neighbor's solos. The role of Billy's mother, who appears in two guises, was expertly sung by sopranos Sara Jane Duffy (the present Clara) and Robin Leigh Massie (the past Clara). The able cast was rounded out by Scott Murphree (Billy), Patrick Evans (Billy's father), and Derek Goodman, Michael Laroche and Jason Scott as soldiers."

In the end, Billy and Zelda is a passionate and rich passage of life through love, marriage, war, death and reconciliation. As the "day begins," we discover what promises are given, deaths are grieved and love is finally reconciled.

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American International Artists

We are delighted to announce that Tina Davidson has signed an exclusive worldwide management contract with Cynthia B. Herbst, Director of American International Artists. Management will concentrate on chamber and symphonic commissioning projects, the commissioning and production of a children's opera, and more performances of Davidson's existing works. Herbst is also exploring the possibility of developing corporate and community residencies, which will allow Davidson to extend her work at the Fleisher Art Memorial to the corporate world and other communities.

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Philadelphia Diary

WHYY-TV12 has commissioned Tina Davidson to write a new work for their upcoming 90-minute feature film, "Philadelphia Diary." The film, which explores the drama of everyday life, employs Davidson in an innovative manner; instead of asking her to write music for a film sequence, they commissioned her to write an original work in response to certain ideas in the film without actually viewing it. In that Early Light, for glass harmonica and cello trio, is performed by glass harmonic player Cecilia Bower and the cellist Ohad Bar-David from The Philadelphia Orchestra.

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Fleisher Art Memorial, Three Year Composer-In-Residence

In 1997, the Samuel S. Fleisher Art Memorial initiated its Composer-in-the-Community project with the Philadelphia composer and educator Tina Davison. Based on her belief that "creativity is a basic and powerful human right and capacity" the ambitious residency was designed to "bring interest and direct personal connection to music, so that the vitality, energy and love for the field can be rekindled." The overriding purpose of a three year Compser in the Community residency is to better the understanding of new music, to excite and revitalize the connection between a living musical culture and the community, and to educate and stimulate young people. Davidson's unique project brings new music to the community through a variety of innovative programs and music making.

The residency has two central aspects: to reach out into the community, supporting both children and adults to engage in the process of writing music; and to bring these new audiences back to Fleisher Art Memorial to hear and experience new music. The community outreach is realized through the citywide Young Composers program and a specialized class at Fleisher called Sculpture as Sound. Audiences are invited back to Fleisher as it commissions a major new work by Tina Davidson each year, performed by ensembles such as Voces Novae et Antique, and the nationally acclaimed Cassatt String Quartet.

Young Composers is at the heart of the outreach programming for the Composer in the community residency. These 12-session residencies teach students in public schools to write and perform music through improvisation, instrument building, graphic notation, and invented notation. Tina Davidson engages the students in the act of creating music from day one. Designed to enhance self-esteem and reinforce achievement through alternative measures of expression, the course culminates with a public performance of the students' compositions. These successful residencies have taken place in public schools across the City of Philadelphia, including McMichael School, Hill Freeman School, Martin Luther King High School, and Nebinger Elementary School. Tina Davidson has documented stories from these schools in an article called "Listening Journal"

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CD Release by CRI: I Hear The Mermaids Singing

Her first long awaited solo compact disc, I Hear the Mermaids Singing, was released in October 1996 on CRI's Emergency Music label. The recording features six chamber works of the composer, and includes performances by the Mendelssohn String Quartet, Charles Abramovic, Marshall Taylor and Philadelphia Orchestra percussionists, Anthony Orlando and Don Liuzzi. (see Review)

The CD was selected as one of the top ten recordings of 1996. "The best of 1996 in music; Tina Davidson "I Hear the Mermaids Singing" and other works (CRI Emergency). A bunch of fine shorter works by the contemporary muse of Philadelphia. As always with Davidson, the material is accessible without ever being condescending." - City Paper

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Commissions

River of Love, River of Light, for chorus (SATB) and mixed ensemble, commissioned by Fleisher Art Memorial for their 100th Anniversary, premiere by Voces Noves et Antique, Philadelphia, October, 1998.