Ep 152: Tina Davidson ~ Unveiling Secrets and Harmonising Identity ~ a Symphony of Life and Inclusion

Transcript

WEBVTT

00:00:02.363 --> 00:00:07.693
Truth and Transcendence brought to you by being Space with Catherine Llewellyn.

00:00:07.693 --> 00:00:24.271
Truth and Transcendence, episode 152, with special guest Tina Davidson.

00:00:24.271 --> 00:00:32.390
Now, if you haven't come across Tina, she's a classical composer and writer for the last 45 years.

00:00:32.390 --> 00:00:46.740
In her memoir Let your Heart Be Broken, she shares about her unique life and the traumas she experienced as a child being adopted by her birth mother but not told about her true identity.

00:00:46.740 --> 00:00:49.908
It's a truly strange and moving story.

00:00:49.908 --> 00:00:58.792
In the book, after years of depression and dissociation, tina started working to reclaim herself through therapy and spiritual practice.

00:00:58.792 --> 00:01:24.031
Meanwhile, she was a single parent, composing and creating works with major ensembles and orchestras such as the Philadelphia Orchestra, american Composers Orchestra, st Paul Chamber Orchestra, kronos Quartet, cassatt Quartet, as well as recordings with Albany Music and on Deutsche Grammophon performed by Grammy winner violinist Hilary Hahn.

00:01:24.591 --> 00:01:27.888
So wow, and I've listened to a bit of Tina's music.

00:01:27.888 --> 00:01:30.087
It's utterly beautiful.

00:01:30.087 --> 00:01:33.346
I know it's subjective, but it is utterly beautiful.

00:01:33.346 --> 00:01:35.912
Thank you, my pleasure.

00:01:35.912 --> 00:01:41.644
I thought it was so cool on your TED Talk where you talked about being a female composer and how unusual that was.

00:01:41.644 --> 00:01:43.379
And you know you've done this music.

00:01:43.379 --> 00:01:50.200
And then you go like, for example, and the camera pans to the other side of the stage and there's a string quartet.

00:01:50.221 --> 00:02:07.316
I think it is it's actually a string trio, so violin, cello, piano, okay cool so you know, um, and they start playing this piece of music and I thought, god, that's so beautiful and also so much more powerful than just the story, the actual music.

00:02:07.316 --> 00:02:23.560
So I invited Tina to come because her journey of exploration in regard to inclusion, which is kind of run through as a thread, is both courageous and enlightening and, I think, highly relevant to many of us today.

00:02:23.560 --> 00:02:26.084
And enlightening, and I think, highly relevant to many of us today.

00:02:26.084 --> 00:02:30.009
Isolation and an absence of community is rife today.

00:02:30.009 --> 00:02:45.169
We all need a sense of belonging, and navigating a lack of this precious component of human life is a challenge many of us are not educated for and it's something we don't like to talk about.

00:02:45.169 --> 00:02:49.543
It's embarrassing, we feel shy, we feel whatever.

00:02:49.543 --> 00:02:57.951
So inclusion is such a powerful theme and I was delighted when Tina agreed to come on and talk about that.

00:02:57.951 --> 00:03:01.865
And, of course, many other things will be woven through our conversation, as usual.

00:03:01.865 --> 00:03:04.292
So, tina, thank you so much for coming on the show.

00:03:08.888 --> 00:03:25.012
Oh, such a pleasure, I'm delighted, excellent, and I am talking to you from Lancaster, pennsylvania in the United States, which is a beautiful area of Pennsylvania that has been cultivated by Amish the Amish.

00:03:25.012 --> 00:03:35.362
So they have very small farms and I always feel that they've created a land trust for us, because they won't sell it, they just hand it down generational.

00:03:35.925 --> 00:03:41.441
So it is a beautiful area here, right, but you're not living in an Amish house yourself.

00:03:42.021 --> 00:03:42.864
No, not at all.

00:03:42.864 --> 00:03:45.490
No, but they're around you.

00:03:45.490 --> 00:03:46.853
They're around me.

00:03:46.853 --> 00:03:50.866
Yes, so give some context for where I am coming from.

00:03:50.986 --> 00:03:52.590
Yeah, how lovely.

00:03:52.590 --> 00:03:56.723
Well, I think that I live in Wales and there's a lot of sheep and birds.

00:03:56.723 --> 00:04:03.925
You're never alone in the countryside, right, right, exactly, always something talking to you.

00:04:03.925 --> 00:04:21.329
Yes, um, so, um, would you like to just lead us straight away, tina, by uh telling us when you first kind of uh connected in with this thing about inclusion, when you, when you first realized how important it was for you.

00:04:22.690 --> 00:04:33.007
You know I'm going to go back to my birth story, but it wasn't until I was later, as an adult, that I realized how important inclusion was.

00:04:33.007 --> 00:04:42.029
But, as you said, I was born in Sweden and I was placed in a foster home and lived with a Swedish family.

00:04:42.029 --> 00:04:57.122
So I lived there for three years and I was the youngest of three boys totally adored, and the brother that was closest to me in age was almost we were only six months apart.

00:04:57.122 --> 00:05:01.677
So we were really brought up as twins in a very close relationship.

00:05:01.677 --> 00:05:06.461
We basically did everything together and slept in the same room, et cetera.

00:05:06.461 --> 00:05:14.072
And when I was three and a half, a beautiful young American woman came.

00:05:14.072 --> 00:05:27.019
She was a young professor, she had gotten her PhD from the University of Pennsylvania and within a month and a half she adopted me and brought me to America and I then grew up as the oldest.

00:05:27.019 --> 00:05:36.029
She married and I became the oldest of five and I always had a sense, even though adoption was never spoken about.

00:05:36.110 --> 00:05:36.771
It was never.

00:05:36.771 --> 00:05:39.007
I was never treated any differently.

00:05:39.007 --> 00:05:41.848
I always felt separate.

00:05:41.848 --> 00:05:50.206
I always, you know, they would talk about oh, your grandfather did this and your grandmother did that, and I go oh, that's so cool.

00:05:50.206 --> 00:05:52.779
Oh, they're not my grandparents.

00:05:52.779 --> 00:06:09.036
There was always that sense of looking through a window at a family that I wanted to physically belong to, and it's interesting what an impact that word has.

00:06:09.036 --> 00:06:22.966
It's just a word, but I think children definitely make up their own context for things and they don't talk about it.

00:06:22.966 --> 00:06:23.908
They don't tell you what's going on.

00:06:23.908 --> 00:06:30.291
So it wasn't until I was 21 and I happened to be back in Sweden and I said, oh, I'm going to find out who my birth parents are.

00:06:30.291 --> 00:06:47.713
And when I contacted the adoption agency and came in, they asked me all these questions about my family and how it was and finally they said the woman who adopted you, your adopted mother, is your birth mother.

00:06:48.615 --> 00:06:49.295
Oh, my God.

00:06:49.899 --> 00:06:54.228
So there was this sense of like.

00:06:54.228 --> 00:07:02.471
My reality was the same, but it was totally changed and that sort of became the beginning.

00:07:02.471 --> 00:07:04.524
I did put it away.

00:07:04.524 --> 00:07:05.750
I was 21.

00:07:05.750 --> 00:07:23.646
I came back and I told my mother and she cried and she said oh, you know, it was so important at that time which is true in the 50s to protect yourself, since I was an illegitimate child and she was a professional Made total sense.

00:07:23.646 --> 00:07:25.221
And she was a professional made total sense.

00:07:25.221 --> 00:07:32.369
But as I processed this over the years, I began to wonder you know, why didn't she just tell me?

00:07:32.369 --> 00:07:43.064
Why had she not said I am your mother, we can't talk about this, and I love you and I want you to know that you belong.

00:07:43.084 --> 00:08:12.925
So it really wasn't until I was in my early 30s and I had a newborn daughter that I realized how important it was to really start diving in and trying to understand this in a deeper context, and it began about a 10-year process of doing a lot of therapy and a lot of crying and a lot of expressing my anger.

00:08:12.925 --> 00:08:30.744
Particularly, I uncovered that not only had I lived sort of with this estrangement all my life which was, I have to say, was in words, not, you know, my family accepted me.

00:08:30.744 --> 00:08:35.043
Every once in a while my brother said well, I'm not going to obey you because you're adopted.

00:08:35.043 --> 00:08:39.874
But you know it wasn't in action.

00:08:39.874 --> 00:08:50.453
I was totally part of the family, although it was clear that my stepfather felt much closer to his biological children than he did to me.

00:08:54.683 --> 00:08:57.407
Did he know no he didn't know either.

00:08:58.442 --> 00:09:16.975
It turned out she really hadn't told anyone, hadn't told anyone, and as time passed she became more and more committed to this secret and more and more anxious and, I think, to some extent paranoid that her life would be taken away.

00:09:16.975 --> 00:09:35.400
But what I did uncover is that and it's not something I think we think of with adopted children is that my foster family, to my three-and-a-half-year-old mind, was my family.

00:09:35.942 --> 00:09:53.708
And when I left, without explanation except go with this woman who I didn't even call mother, I called her Aunt Terry for quite a while.

00:09:53.708 --> 00:09:57.615
That whole unit, it was like there was a car accident and they all died.

00:09:57.980 --> 00:10:03.947
Yeah, yeah yeah, but there was no discussion and no ability to grieve that.

00:10:03.947 --> 00:10:12.830
And so in my 30s I really did find that I had a lot of grief to express, I think professionally, as a composer.

00:10:12.830 --> 00:10:37.003
Where this started to leak out and I always compose about myself in my music, but, in terms of inclusion, where this started to really leak out and take a professional turn is that in the 80s and even 90s, being a classical composer was sort of considered an elevated art form.

00:10:37.003 --> 00:10:46.792
You know, oh, you're a composer where you must be not of this earth, or you must be so talented or, oh my gosh, how do you do it.

00:10:46.792 --> 00:10:53.812
And I really started to resent that because I really wanted everybody to compose.

00:10:54.740 --> 00:11:20.634
But the music world had sort of fashioned this elitism to boost the art field, to make it seem, you know, everybody would want to come and be in the presence of Beethoven and you know, mozart and Bach, these geniuses rather than.

00:11:20.634 --> 00:11:47.474
Oh, you know, when you go to kindergarten, your first grade, you go in there's an easel over in the corner and the teacher puts a smock on you and then she gives you the best art lesson in the world and she says try not to get the paint on the floor and you just go off and you create and it's your personal experience with this art form.

00:11:47.474 --> 00:11:55.989
It's not narrated or you don't have to teach, learn brush strokes or go.

00:11:55.989 --> 00:11:57.090
You know you're not.

00:11:57.090 --> 00:12:03.317
You know, in the music world you have to listen to all the great masters before you're allowed to do anything.

00:12:03.317 --> 00:12:08.590
But you know, when you're in kindergarten they don't say oh, excuse me, you haven't gone to the museum yet.

00:12:08.590 --> 00:12:12.903
You cannot paint until you've gone to the museum.

00:12:14.667 --> 00:12:35.821
So that idea of including everyone into the process of the artistic form has been very, very important to me as a composer and as a writer, and I think you know you talk about my book Let your Heart Be Broken and I write about my process.

00:12:35.821 --> 00:12:37.283
You know.

00:12:37.283 --> 00:12:40.811
I just want people to know this is, you know, it's not a big deal.

00:12:40.811 --> 00:12:52.570
It's always a big deal to be a professional in your field, whatever your field is banking, veterinarian, podcaster it's always a big deal.

00:12:52.570 --> 00:12:54.453
You always have to work hard at it.

00:12:54.779 --> 00:12:55.000
Yeah.

00:12:55.601 --> 00:12:58.706
But the arts aren't some bigger deal.

00:12:58.706 --> 00:13:10.124
That's the way I feel, that's the way I teach, that's the way I feel, that's the way I teach and that's the way I write.

00:13:10.124 --> 00:13:11.206
Music is that idea of inclusion.

00:13:11.206 --> 00:13:15.714
I was thinking how sometimes people will say is there a word that represents your life?

00:13:21.201 --> 00:13:25.580
And some people would say love, or I would say inclusion, that is my word.

00:13:25.580 --> 00:13:29.721
Inclusion that is my word, yeah.

00:13:29.721 --> 00:13:31.806
So how it comes across is that you have a fundamental assumption of inclusion.

00:13:31.806 --> 00:13:57.902
That inclusion is where you're coming from in the way that you're approaching your life and what you're doing, which is a very interesting response to me, given the history that you've had, because some people might have responded to that history by being suspicious or exclusive or defensive or any of those things, might say that's a way somebody could have gone.

00:13:57.902 --> 00:13:59.644
But you haven't gone that way.

00:13:59.644 --> 00:14:01.947
But you did say you did a lot of personal work.

00:14:01.947 --> 00:14:05.413
You must have transformed a lot within you.

00:14:06.315 --> 00:14:14.009
Yes, and I write about that journey of how I did that work and it was painful.

00:14:14.009 --> 00:14:17.067
I composed a lot about it.

00:14:17.067 --> 00:14:23.514
So I almost did two kinds of therapy at the same time talk therapy and then composing therapy.

00:14:23.514 --> 00:14:27.330
So I had pieces called Dark Child Sings.

00:14:27.330 --> 00:14:45.342
That's a cello octet and that was about that little lost child in me that I felt was kind of dark in the dark and kind of a dark, downcast face, that sort of sense of not being included, sort of sense of not being included.

00:14:45.342 --> 00:14:49.803
And so I wrote a lot of for about 10 years I wrote a lot about that.

00:14:50.000 --> 00:14:58.837
I don't think I was saying, oh, now let me put my therapy into music.

00:14:58.837 --> 00:15:02.054
It was just sort of where I was guided.

00:15:02.054 --> 00:15:07.984
I've always felt that I am the petri dish, I am the fertile ground.

00:15:07.984 --> 00:15:17.388
I try to understand myself in not only relationship to myself but in relation to the world as I grow and change.

00:15:17.388 --> 00:15:23.494
Only relationship to myself, but in relation to the world as I grow and change, have children, you know, go into my 60s and 70s.

00:15:23.494 --> 00:15:31.900
So what's going on now is kind of where I'm always at.

00:15:31.900 --> 00:15:44.684
And for about 10 years in my 30s and into my 40s, that narrative was forefront.

00:15:49.164 --> 00:15:51.109
Then I started to really think about how could I include others in music.

00:15:51.109 --> 00:16:00.250
So one of the things I developed was a school program where I went into schools and taught children who never had any musical background how to compose music.

00:16:00.250 --> 00:16:02.880
We did that through instrument building.

00:16:02.880 --> 00:16:18.076
So we built instruments out of cans and jars and shoe boxes and what I found is that when you allow kids to run around and make things like an instrument, basically you can ask them to do anything.

00:16:18.076 --> 00:16:20.846
They're yours, they'll do anything for you.

00:16:20.846 --> 00:16:24.654
So then we would write music using graphic notation.

00:16:24.654 --> 00:16:30.013
So how to simplify the notation system so that it's at their level.

00:16:30.013 --> 00:16:35.250
So firstly, graphic they would draw the sounds and they'd have wonderful titles.

00:16:35.250 --> 00:16:40.308
It would be some story, because that's what music is, it's a story, a beginning, middle and end.

00:16:40.308 --> 00:16:46.499
Then we'd reduce the paper and have invented notation.

00:16:46.499 --> 00:16:55.366
So they'd have to think of the sound and think how would they invent symbols, to think of different pitches or even rhythms.

00:16:55.366 --> 00:17:06.621
And within I would teach like once a week for 10 weeks and we would have created a whole half hour concert of music that they had to perform for the school.

00:17:06.621 --> 00:17:20.840
So it became, you know, and I always was how do I teach what I know at whoever's in front of me, whatever their level is.

00:17:20.840 --> 00:17:44.117
So I'm constantly modifying my teaching for you know and I actually excel at kids who have behavior problems I'm really good at them or who see the world differently, maybe are on the spectrum, because I'm always thinking this is what I know, how can I create something for that particular learning style?

00:17:44.117 --> 00:17:46.829
And that is also a way of inclusion.

00:17:46.829 --> 00:17:59.539
If you're always saying this is what I know and I'm just going to teach it to you the way I think it should be taught, you're not really including the person in that process.

00:18:00.385 --> 00:18:05.857
Then I started to create a lot of music that included children performing with professionals.

00:18:05.857 --> 00:18:15.770
I thought, oh, you know, it's fun to listen to an orchestra, it's fun to listen to an ensemble, but can you imagine playing with an ensemble?

00:18:15.770 --> 00:18:20.087
That might really make you feel like you wanted to do that.

00:18:20.087 --> 00:18:25.720
So I created a lot of pieces where there were children.

00:18:26.240 --> 00:18:36.536
I have one for what we call twinklers, our little kids who can just play Twinkle, twinkle Little Star, and they study with their teacher and they play.

00:18:36.536 --> 00:18:41.952
Maryary had a little lamb and twinkle, twinkle little star and um, kind of the suzuki method.

00:18:41.952 --> 00:18:59.464
So I created a melody for them that they learned and they play with their teachers and they just repeat it over and over again and then the orchestra comes in and kind of wraps them up and then they emerge again as solos and then they're wrapped up into this orchestra.

00:18:59.464 --> 00:19:14.555
So my idea was not only a wonderful experience for the orchestra you know how cool is that but for these kids to have the entitlement to play with the orchestra.

00:19:14.555 --> 00:19:19.047
You know that experience, you know like, oh, I was up on this stage.

00:19:19.047 --> 00:19:27.986
So I'm always looking for opportunities to share this field that I love, which is writing music.

00:19:28.567 --> 00:19:47.134
And yeah, I love that, that just for some reason I feel very moved by that story about the children and the orchestra and I and to me, you, me that sense of I want to be able to play with the orchestra, whether it's actually an orchestra or whether it's actually the orchestra of life.

00:19:47.134 --> 00:20:07.207
I want to be able to play with it and play on my own and play with it and play on my own or with my group of peers or whatever that's right, beautiful, beautiful.

00:20:07.227 --> 00:20:10.938
And when I teach composition, it's not that I want you to be a composer, but I want to show you your creativity.

00:20:10.938 --> 00:20:18.499
I'm going to put a stamp on your creativity and that stamp says this is yours, this belongs to you.

00:20:18.499 --> 00:20:21.486
Don't let anybody say you're not creative.

00:20:21.486 --> 00:20:28.858
You can use that creativity or that sort of sense of inquiry in everything you do.

00:20:28.858 --> 00:20:31.107
You know so.

00:20:31.107 --> 00:20:32.990
I'm always saying you know that's.

00:20:32.990 --> 00:20:40.901
My mission is to tell children they're creative and they're responsible for this wonderful gift that we all get.

00:20:42.446 --> 00:20:59.519
Yeah, wow, and I don't know why, but my mind's suddenly gone back to that conversation you had with your mother after you'd gone and found out, because it struck me that, her not acknowledging that you were her birth daughter, she was excluding part of herself, wasn't she?

00:20:59.519 --> 00:21:01.566
I?

00:21:01.665 --> 00:21:02.810
think so yes.

00:21:03.645 --> 00:21:14.130
And then you came back to tell her what you'd found out, and that sounds to me like you invited her to include that part of herself again as well as including you.

00:21:14.130 --> 00:21:15.951
Do you feel it had that effect on her?

00:21:16.566 --> 00:21:19.029
I love that interpretation of it.

00:21:19.029 --> 00:21:21.292
That's very loving.

00:21:21.292 --> 00:21:40.101
Yes, I think the tragedy for my mother is that she couldn't, that she didn't feel free, and that's partly a product of her time and being such a progressive.

00:21:40.101 --> 00:21:45.452
Having a PhD in the 50s, that was an enormous accomplishment.

00:21:45.452 --> 00:21:54.491
But I think she was born in the 20s and she was always quite the feminist.

00:21:54.491 --> 00:22:10.440
But she also didn't accept or feel safe enough in the world to really truly be herself and I think that is a wonderful way of expressing it.

00:22:10.440 --> 00:22:20.900
I think in my book I see it more as a cautionary tale of what happens when you have a secret in your life.

00:22:20.900 --> 00:22:29.031
I mean, you're always allowed privacy, everyone you know, you don't have to tell things about yourself, but a secret is different.

00:22:29.031 --> 00:22:32.511
It's usually about somebody else that might be.

00:22:32.511 --> 00:22:35.057
That's keeping them from something.

00:22:35.057 --> 00:22:54.907
That's keeping them from something and I think that willingness to sort of sell yourself for that secret or that safety is extremely damaging and I always felt that the secret sort of became a kind of in the book.

00:22:54.968 --> 00:22:56.894
I call it a personal Frankenstein.

00:22:56.894 --> 00:23:05.230
It's very destructive and you are almost controlled by it.

00:23:05.230 --> 00:23:14.693
You're always having to consult the secret before you make some sort of move and I think in terms of personal freedom that's very limiting.

00:23:15.174 --> 00:23:18.335
Yeah, I'm sure it must be, I'm sure it must be, I'm sure it must be.

00:23:18.335 --> 00:23:26.396
But very courageous for you to go and do that, find out that information, and then come back and talk to her about it Really courageous.

00:23:26.396 --> 00:23:31.734
And then, of course, she didn't have the burden anymore of not telling you, because you knew.

00:23:32.396 --> 00:23:33.500
Right, right.

00:23:33.500 --> 00:23:37.666
But I think she was frightened that I wanted to tell my siblings.

00:23:37.666 --> 00:23:43.170
She didn't want me to tell my siblings and finally I said well, you have to tell my stepfather.

00:23:43.411 --> 00:23:44.570
I mean you just have to.

00:23:44.570 --> 00:23:53.617
And she was reluctant but did, and it was very hard on her.

00:23:53.617 --> 00:24:04.151
When I got married, she did not want me to include my father's family, my biological father's family, in my marriage.

00:24:04.151 --> 00:24:12.269
She wanted me to have two weddings and I said no, it's enough, I'm not going to pretend.

00:24:12.269 --> 00:24:21.461
And she was actually not going to come to my wedding until a week before.

00:24:21.785 --> 00:24:33.355
I think she was hoping I would fold and I just said I love you, Can't do this you know, I would have thought that by then she should have realized what kind of person she was dealing with in you.

00:24:33.505 --> 00:24:35.092
Well, I think she was always hopeful.

00:24:37.346 --> 00:24:39.357
So did you have three families at your wedding.

00:24:39.397 --> 00:24:46.101
You know the foster family I wish I, you know, I didn't have the foster family at that point.

00:24:46.260 --> 00:25:07.534
I didn't really connect with them until I was three, until my daughter was three and a half right and then I went and and spent time in Sweden and that was really wonderful because I could be with my foster family and see my daughter, who was the same age that when I left, and I could sort of get bearings of.

00:25:07.534 --> 00:25:11.212
You know, they're very talkative and I was a little Swedish girl.

00:25:11.212 --> 00:25:13.973
I was a mile-a-minute Swedish girl.

00:25:13.973 --> 00:25:20.945
Unfortunately my Swedish mother had died so I never got to see her again.

00:25:20.945 --> 00:25:39.666
And then when my daughter was 10, we spent about six weeks in Scandinavia, four weeks in Sweden and two weeks traveling, and there I lived very close to my foster brother, the one that was very close to me, and he told me a lot of stories that I didn't know.

00:25:41.509 --> 00:25:42.813
Great, how great.

00:25:42.813 --> 00:25:47.380
And so you got to meet your actual bio dad.

00:25:50.087 --> 00:26:05.465
I did and in this strange way that my mother operated, she said to me when I was in 10th grade so I had three years left of high school she said, oh, I think you should go away to school, I think you should go to boarding school.

00:26:05.465 --> 00:26:09.494
And I said, oh, I can go to this wonderful music boarding school.

00:26:09.494 --> 00:26:16.076
She said, no, no, no, no, you have to go to Philadelphia because I have friends there and this family will look in on you.

00:26:16.076 --> 00:26:25.867
So I went to the boarding school and then, from the next year, for 11th grade, she happened to have a job in Germany and I lived in Germany with the family.

00:26:25.867 --> 00:26:28.355
I went to a German school and learned German.

00:26:29.419 --> 00:26:42.114
So I came back to this boarding school in 12th grade and she said actually, this family that I told you about would like you to live with them for a year and it will save lots of money, et cetera, et cetera.

00:26:42.114 --> 00:27:02.519
So I lived there a year, only to find out much later that it was my biological father's family that I had lived with for a year without knowing it, and I would call my mother up and I'd say you know, the parents seem to be fighting an awful lot.

00:27:02.519 --> 00:27:16.498
Well, of course the mother knew that I was his biological child and she had agreed to this, but after about six months it became very tense between them.

00:27:16.498 --> 00:27:21.368
Honestly, honestly, exactly, honestly.

00:27:21.368 --> 00:27:22.390
Are you kidding?

00:27:22.390 --> 00:27:25.153
You could not write this, could you Well?

00:27:25.374 --> 00:27:26.134
I did write it.

00:27:26.435 --> 00:27:27.477
Yeah, but you know what I mean.

00:27:27.477 --> 00:27:28.759
But you couldn't make it up.

00:27:28.759 --> 00:27:30.201
You couldn't make it up.

00:27:39.247 --> 00:27:43.025
This was obviously some sort of inclusion training you were being put through that you didn't remember having ordered up.

00:27:43.025 --> 00:27:53.713
Well, you know, my birth was very difficult for that family because he did have a lot of children and the issues of how I was included has been very difficult for them.

00:27:53.713 --> 00:28:14.173
The older ones were sort of okay with it, the younger ones were fine, but in that family I always knew that I was the illegitimate child, which is a very strange thing to be, because there are all these sort of social.

00:28:14.173 --> 00:28:17.288
I mean, what does it mean to be an illegitimate child?

00:28:17.288 --> 00:28:18.374
It means nothing.

00:28:18.374 --> 00:28:21.714
It just means you had birth parents that weren't married.

00:28:21.714 --> 00:28:26.335
It's not, but to other people it may have a lot.

00:28:26.335 --> 00:28:37.497
Yeah, you know, and I think when you are I love the euphemisms for being illegitimate it's born on the other side of the blanket.

00:28:37.497 --> 00:28:59.698
Yes, yes, Okay, and I just you know, and the history of illegitimacy, particularly in England, with you know the usurpers and the, you know it just is, and I feel very close to my siblings that I grew up with.

00:29:00.506 --> 00:29:05.817
I feel less close with the siblings that I'm biologically connected to but didn't grow up with.

00:29:05.817 --> 00:29:29.257
And that is also an interesting thing about how do you claim lineage and I think that being brought up in a family sort of synthesizes a lot of the thinking, maybe some of the values, and it doesn't mean that all the children are the same or would even have the same values, but there is a chance of it having.

00:29:29.257 --> 00:29:37.762
And certainly my father's family was a lot more wealthy than my mother's family.

00:29:37.762 --> 00:29:41.144
My mother's family was wealthy in intellectual endeavors.

00:29:41.144 --> 00:29:44.895
That was their wealth and their sort of snobbism.

00:29:44.895 --> 00:29:53.653
And my biological family, although he was a world-class scientist and worked all over, did a lot of research all over the world.

00:29:53.653 --> 00:30:04.428
They had a lot of money, so there was a lot more class stuff going on that I never understood.

00:30:04.428 --> 00:30:10.039
I was like going that's really weird, yeah, wow.

00:30:10.540 --> 00:30:14.209
Well, I think it's great how you've actually navigated and integrated it all.

00:30:14.209 --> 00:30:20.107
Yes, there's a question I was really thinking about asking you and I was thinking about this this morning.

00:30:20.107 --> 00:30:28.893
You're creating this beautiful music and you've had this whole really interesting, very challenging life.

00:30:28.893 --> 00:30:40.518
How do you feel the nature of your music has been influenced by this path that you have traveled and are traveling?

00:30:41.704 --> 00:30:44.369
Oh, 100% influenced.

00:30:44.369 --> 00:30:49.744
And again, I am a composer that really composes about my life, where I am now.

00:30:49.744 --> 00:30:56.959
After those 10 years of writing about the trauma, I felt a really interesting shift.

00:30:56.959 --> 00:31:13.758
Of writing about the trauma I felt a really interesting shift and I became interested in connecting to things that were outside of me, like the earth or spirituality or those bigger things, and I was challenged particularly by spirituality.

00:31:13.758 --> 00:31:34.873
I had been brought up in a Unitarian household, first as an Episcopalian and then as a Unitarian, and just to think of God, you know God felt like so patriarchal to me and this idea that somebody was out there sort of directing your life didn't make a lot of sense to me.

00:31:34.873 --> 00:31:45.971
So I really had to emotionally go back and redeem those words like spirituality or connection to God or connection.

00:31:45.971 --> 00:31:50.948
And I came to a place where God could be anything.

00:31:50.948 --> 00:31:57.178
It could be Allah, it could be God, it could be Jehovah, it could be the Great Mother, it could be the Earth, and I startedhovah.

00:31:57.178 --> 00:31:57.695
It could be the Great Mother, it could be the earth.

00:31:57.695 --> 00:32:01.935
And I started writing a lot of music about that connection.

00:32:01.935 --> 00:32:19.236
I really started to explore it and I think it was as I started to resolve trauma in my life, my heart was more open to things that were outside and I became really interested in connecting to them.

00:32:19.236 --> 00:32:21.048
So I started.

00:32:22.451 --> 00:32:35.336
The piece that I wrote for the violinist, hilary Hahn, is the Blue Curve of the Earth, and it's about the earth seen from the moon and that beautiful blue curve and our love of the earth.

00:32:35.336 --> 00:32:42.390
I have a piece called Theight of Angels for String Quartet and it's about that.

00:32:42.390 --> 00:32:52.614
The angels, according to Jewish and Christian tradition, are so full of joy of being in the presence of God that they dance all the time.

00:32:52.614 --> 00:32:54.438
They just never stop dancing.

00:32:54.438 --> 00:33:05.192
And I, you know, that was you know what would it be like to allow yourself to have that kind of joy, particularly from some of the darkness?

00:33:05.192 --> 00:33:21.303
And when I compose, I'm writing a narrative, but I'm thinking about that joy and that movement as I compose the piece.

00:33:21.303 --> 00:33:29.460
I'm allowing myself to have that kind of experience of wondering and opening myself up to those ideas.

00:33:29.460 --> 00:33:36.397
So I would say, for the next 20 years, I have a piece for orchestra called Celestial Turnings.

00:33:36.397 --> 00:33:52.340
I mean, I just was constantly writing about that and now in this you know, fifth or sixth decade, I am finding that I'm writing about things that are a lot more personal.

00:33:52.340 --> 00:33:55.734
I have a CD recording coming out in July.

00:33:56.964 --> 00:34:09.679
The pieces are called oh, one of them is called Barefoot and it's about, you know, it was winter and I just wanted to go out and be barefoot in the garden and feel the dirt, you know, that warm earth under my feet.

00:34:09.679 --> 00:34:20.565
And then I was thinking of Moses coming up to the burning bush and God says, take your shoes off to the burning bush.

00:34:20.565 --> 00:34:24.538
And God says take your shoes off, that idea of being in the divine present and having to bear, you know, really bear, the soles of your feet.

00:34:24.538 --> 00:34:26.744
So that's called barefoot.

00:34:26.744 --> 00:34:34.195
Another piece is called hush and it's about hushing your child, comforting your child.

00:34:34.195 --> 00:34:37.760
You know those, you know, hush, darling, oh, let me comfort you.

00:34:43.771 --> 00:34:45.974
So they're much more personal.

00:34:45.974 --> 00:34:49.139
Yes, and quieter, quieter pieces.

00:34:49.139 --> 00:34:50.521
I think that are tender.

00:34:50.521 --> 00:34:54.711
I just finished a piece for piano called Bending Light.

00:34:54.711 --> 00:35:00.769
I was just thinking about it what, what if you could actually put your hand on light and you could bend it?

00:35:00.769 --> 00:35:18.418
And then I think of bending music, or you know bending the sound, or you know bending your life, or maybe flexibility, I don't know things like that well, that sounds to me like a synthesis of the personal and the spiritual, actually, I think so.

00:35:19.246 --> 00:35:32.358
That's how it really sounds and I love how, in that whole cycle that you've described in your life, how each thing, when fully embraced, then gave rise to the next thing.

00:35:33.965 --> 00:35:35.945
Yes, because it's about curiosity.

00:35:36.326 --> 00:35:39.847
Yeah, yes, because it's about curiosity?

00:35:39.887 --> 00:35:40.628
Yeah, it's sort of.

00:35:40.628 --> 00:36:04.543
I remember years and years ago I went to a personal growth workshop and I had just divorced from my daughter's father and I was just a mess and I remember standing up and talking about all this anger and frustration and now I've done it, I've moved on, and he said to me, he said great.

00:36:07.166 --> 00:36:08.027
Now what yeah?

00:36:08.568 --> 00:36:14.358
And part of me said I wanted you to sympathize with my victimhood.

00:36:14.358 --> 00:36:22.688
And you're asking me now what?

00:36:22.688 --> 00:36:24.516
But I think that's you know when I got over myself.

00:36:24.516 --> 00:36:25.458
It took me a while to get over myself.

00:36:25.458 --> 00:36:27.827
In that situation, I think we've all been in exactly that situation?

00:36:27.847 --> 00:36:28.086
Yes, yeah.

00:36:28.407 --> 00:36:30.271
I mean like, what about me?

00:36:30.271 --> 00:36:31.494
Why?

00:36:31.514 --> 00:36:33.038
aren't you validating me.

00:36:33.057 --> 00:36:34.286
Yes, what about my pain?

00:36:34.286 --> 00:36:40.389
You didn't hear me, but that is the mature question Now what?

00:36:40.389 --> 00:37:00.362
And it's not that we're going to deny what has happened, but we know that as we greet that pain and that difficulty, we're also moving forward through it to the next thing, which is the now what?

00:37:00.362 --> 00:37:40.920
Yeah, and that is the title of my book Let your Heart Be Broken, that idea that we all have our heart broken, but that accepting that brokenheartedness, that loving it, being compassionate with it, allows us to find that, for me, in my imagination, that wonderful, rich, fertile earth that is in that brokenheartedness At the bottom of your heart that is shattered, there is this beautiful earth for a new life to begin.

00:37:40.920 --> 00:37:58.775
And that is not about going out and looking for it, because it's going to happen anyway, yes, but it is about valuing the experience, allowing yourself to grieve the experience, move through the experience and not bury it in your backyard.

00:37:59.824 --> 00:38:00.226
Lovely.

00:38:00.226 --> 00:38:10.007
I love it, and also the openness, the curiosity and the openness and the adventurousness.

00:38:10.007 --> 00:38:13.210
I do think you're adventurous in your story as well.

00:38:13.210 --> 00:38:17.657
You're not sort of sitting there going, oh, I don't know.

00:38:17.657 --> 00:38:23.032
You're like ah, I know, I'll just cross the ocean to find out who my real parents are.

00:38:23.534 --> 00:38:24.998
Now I do want to have a caveat.

00:38:24.998 --> 00:38:30.831
I do the victimhood very well, but I limit it.

00:38:30.831 --> 00:38:38.260
It's always like, okay, you really want five minutes of this, go to town and then it's enough.

00:38:38.260 --> 00:38:57.626
So I do think there is a lot of discipline in joy and in finding a new direction, and there's also, you know, doing the work to heal yourself, and it comes in many forms.

00:38:57.626 --> 00:39:00.188
It's not only the talk therapy Doing the work to heal yourself and it comes in many forms.

00:39:00.188 --> 00:39:00.869
It's not only the talk therapy.

00:39:00.889 --> 00:39:26.554
I found journal writing extremely important and one of my stepdaughters recently wrote to me and she's been reading my memoir and she said I just got a journal and I thought, oh, she said I want to know about myself and I thought I couldn't be happier with that response.

00:39:26.554 --> 00:39:48.331
It wasn't about me, as she's reading the book, it's about her, and I think that's also part of the artistic inclusion no-transcript I give myself out there, but I don't really want you to know me.

00:39:48.331 --> 00:39:58.704
I want you to know you, I want it to resonate in you so that you know or you're curious about you more.

00:39:58.704 --> 00:40:04.940
That would be the ultimate feedback for me, that would be the best scenario.

00:40:05.922 --> 00:40:07.246
Yeah, wonderful yes.

00:40:07.246 --> 00:40:15.581
So you're giving out something with the intention that it's going to serve the listener's potential, that they're going to know.

00:40:15.601 --> 00:40:20.936
Whatever it is, it's not them trying to figure out what me.

00:40:20.936 --> 00:40:25.869
It's just about them receiving and hearing themselves.

00:40:26.389 --> 00:40:27.932
Yeah, beautiful.

00:40:27.932 --> 00:40:30.023
Well, what's more inclusive than that?

00:40:30.023 --> 00:40:36.434
Yeah, yes, very inclusive, it is.

00:40:37.661 --> 00:40:44.239
But it is I think it really is to the heart of the artistic endeavor.

00:40:44.239 --> 00:40:51.503
I think sometimes fame and fortune covers that up and sort of covers it up.

00:40:51.503 --> 00:40:57.621
But I do think when Bach was writing music he wrote in the bottom to the greater glory of God.

00:40:57.621 --> 00:41:01.048
That's who we wanted to talk to.

00:41:01.048 --> 00:41:04.253
He wasn't thinking about an audience.

00:41:04.253 --> 00:41:08.505
I don't think Mozart had this sense.

00:41:08.505 --> 00:41:11.724
Oh, I'm becoming a great composer, I have to write great music.

00:41:11.724 --> 00:41:18.443
He was thinking of the people he was relating to and that is really always about inclusion.

00:41:19.887 --> 00:41:21.130
Yeah, I love it.

00:41:21.130 --> 00:41:27.085
Very inspiring and very different, very, very different story.

00:41:27.085 --> 00:41:40.271
And I think, with this whole thing of music, I think we've all had that experience where the music holds us or moves us or enters us or inspires us or nourishes us or challenges us.

00:41:40.271 --> 00:41:57.860
We've all had experiences of being profoundly affected by music and it's so easy now to get hold of music and just play it wherever you want and we don't necessarily know anything about what's behind the curtain.

00:41:57.860 --> 00:42:04.617
You know the person who created the music, what's their process, what's their life.

00:42:05.001 --> 00:42:06.324
What's their intention?

00:42:06.324 --> 00:42:07.887
We have no idea.

00:42:07.887 --> 00:42:16.353
So it's lovely hearing all of this and it all makes perfect sense to me in the way you describe it.

00:42:16.353 --> 00:42:47.650
I love how you kind of mentioned earlier on this thing about music being a higher art form, that a different kind of creature, not a normal human being, can create this music, and it strikes me that the way you've engaged with it and the way you engage with it is much more of a contribution in many ways, because it is including all of being human rather than making it about being some sort of perfect offering which is not personal Right.

00:42:48.853 --> 00:42:49.675
And to me.

00:42:49.675 --> 00:42:57.532
You know it's so interesting and we were talking about words and how words define.

00:42:57.532 --> 00:43:22.373
You know that I was adopted and that word defined me when in reality it didn't really have much to do with me, but it was the word that either I labeled myself with or others labeled me with, and I think in music, or let's see if I can think I was thinking of this.

00:43:22.373 --> 00:43:26.025
Now I've forgotten it.

00:43:26.025 --> 00:43:28.487
I'll have to get back to it.

00:43:32.583 --> 00:43:38.027
Words like adopted, which is supposed to mean something, but it's not really a notion.

00:43:38.710 --> 00:43:38.951
Right.

00:43:38.951 --> 00:44:04.994
And I think when you look at the word art form, we associate that art form with something that is quite different than folk music or rock and roll or popular music, and I think the arts, and they call it the high arts, which always makes me laugh.

00:44:04.994 --> 00:44:10.190
But when you look, oh, I remember what I was going to talk.

00:44:10.190 --> 00:44:16.048
So when you look at Beethoven, I'll take Beethoven, and I wrote about this for Ms Magazine years ago.

00:44:16.048 --> 00:44:26.134
When you look at Beethoven and I love Beethoven when you look at him and use the words universal music he is writing a universal, it appeals to everyone.

00:44:26.134 --> 00:44:30.251
And you look at the way he ends pieces, for instance.

00:44:30.251 --> 00:44:39.333
It's usually with a lot of fanfare, it's usually very loud and there are these chords and it's the repeated chord dum, dum, da-da-dum.

00:44:41.579 --> 00:45:02.914
Now change the words and look at him as a man who is living at that time white, christian, upper class, not a worker and you might then see the ending of his pieces as more like an orgasm.

00:45:02.914 --> 00:45:12.842
Perhaps you don't have to believe that that, but let's say hypothetically that's bum, bum, bum, bum.

00:45:12.842 --> 00:45:17.630
It is talking about his physical energy, yeah, and?

00:45:17.630 --> 00:45:40.061
But that totally opens the question then, since we're not talking about universal music and I don't have to write that way to be universal, but it is personal.

00:45:40.061 --> 00:45:40.501
Then how is my energy?

00:45:40.501 --> 00:45:41.242
What does my energy speak to?

00:45:41.242 --> 00:45:48.574
And that, for me, years ago, was so defining because it became like, oh, what's me Rather than what's that?

00:45:48.574 --> 00:45:51.088
And how do I fit into that?

00:45:51.088 --> 00:46:00.934
And I love Beethoven I think he was an irritable, grumpy guy a lot of the time who wrote exquisitely beautiful music.

00:46:00.934 --> 00:46:15.826
But now I can just be me and look at my energy, look at myself as a woman, as a mother, as a person who's living right now, yes, and writing about my time.

00:46:15.826 --> 00:46:19.748
So those words completely changed the context.

00:46:19.909 --> 00:46:21.512
Yes, yeah, yeah.

00:46:21.512 --> 00:46:28.490
That reframing which allowed me to then come through as you rather than you coming through as someone who's trying to be like Beethoven.

00:46:29.331 --> 00:46:34.530
Right, exactly, I would be a very poor second Beethoven really poor.

00:46:34.559 --> 00:46:36.684
We don't need another Beethoven, we've already got one.

00:46:37.224 --> 00:46:39.389
Yes, yes, and he's lovely.

00:46:39.889 --> 00:46:42.614
Yeah, exactly, yeah, brilliant.

00:46:42.614 --> 00:46:45.905
I mean honestly, I could talk to you for ages.

00:46:45.985 --> 00:46:59.016
It's just so lovely, thank you, I'm going to kind of switch the direction slightly now and go a little bit more global sort of level.

00:46:59.016 --> 00:47:12.592
There are a lot of challenges in the world at the moment I think we can all agree and everyone's got their own ideas about what is happening, what isn't happening, what should happen, what has happened, what's going to happen.

00:47:12.592 --> 00:47:33.110
Everyone's got their own ideas and against that backdrop, there are a lot of people in leadership positions of all kinds community leaders, business leaders, spiritual leaders and people who just want to be great leaders in their own lives and I like to think most of those people are trying to be helpful.

00:47:33.110 --> 00:47:34.503
They want to be part of the solution.

00:47:34.503 --> 00:48:00.072
I like to think and some of those people are listening to us right now and listening to this whole conversation we've been having about inclusion and all these amazing ways of thinking about inclusion and expressing inclusion that you've been talking about Is there something you'd like to say to those leaders in relation to some of what we've been talking about today?

00:48:01.619 --> 00:48:05.603
Well, it is quite the time we're living in, isn't it?

00:48:05.603 --> 00:48:43.213
You know, sometimes I feel that artists and thinkers and writers and teachers feel that what they're doing is so small compared to the needs that are being presented now People dying, people starving, people being bombed, and I think it's hard to maintain the faith of your work and that small gestures over time have big consequences.

00:48:43.213 --> 00:49:13.739
I am thinking of Middlemarch, and at the end of it she talks about how the faith of the small parents and the small people are really what holds up society, society.

00:49:13.739 --> 00:49:18.204
And I think, you know, there is always the urge for artists to write big pieces for peace and for stability, and they and we do.

00:49:18.204 --> 00:49:37.168
But I also think that any time you act out your beliefs for inclusion or peace or love, that it does have a ripple effect.

00:49:37.500 --> 00:49:56.349
Now, of course, I think there is a sense like, oh, I should stop being a composer and be an activist, and that is a really hard thing to negotiate because the needs of the people are so great.

00:49:56.349 --> 00:50:14.686
But I also do think that when you are standing in your field with love and with inclusion and with that, you are also supporting young people, because they need to be indoctrinated in these.

00:50:14.686 --> 00:50:29.692
You know that creativity is your gift, that it is I'm teaching you in a loving way, in a respectful way, and you integrate that into your life and live that as well.

00:50:29.692 --> 00:50:33.496
So it is a very hard path.

00:50:33.496 --> 00:50:41.253
I think you have to kind of stick to your guns and stake out what you can speak about.

00:50:42.641 --> 00:51:01.655
I speak about not only the love of my field but the support of women and how they have also suffered through the millennia and are continuing to speak out and be actualized and how to support them.

00:51:01.655 --> 00:51:10.735
So I'm always looking to see what part of my garden can I till for the benefit of others.

00:51:10.735 --> 00:51:24.945
And it's sometimes very hard to stick to your gifts and to believe that, as I do, that I was given gifts, I was given experiences.

00:51:24.945 --> 00:51:35.019
This is how I am expressing them and that is enough.

00:51:35.019 --> 00:51:41.240
It's a hard thing to say that you're enough because it's so painful.

00:51:41.260 --> 00:52:17.164
I think that's very well said, beautifully said, and I've been thinking a lot along those lines, you know, particularly during the COVID years, particularly because there were a lot of people kind of suffering in all sorts of ways during that time and I often thought, surely I'm not doing enough, surely I'm not doing enough, and kept coming back to who do I think I am, that I'm supposed to be doing something different from what I'm doing from what I can do, you know Well, and the advocacy of podcasts.

00:52:17.184 --> 00:52:39.632
I have to say I am just so grateful to all of you out there who have taken it on their own initiative to create contact about something that they love, and I think that is just wonderful and you do what I do to your constituents and you try to get the word out there.

00:52:40.213 --> 00:53:03.407
Absolutely right, and I'm quite lucky because on my hosting service I can look and see which countries people are listening to the podcast, and there are people listening to this podcast in all of the countries that are talked about on the news and not necessarily very many of them, but some of them are listening to these conversations and I'm thinking how amazing is that?

00:53:03.407 --> 00:53:12.085
But when you start doing something, you don't necessarily know it can have any effect on anybody in any way exactly.

00:53:12.085 --> 00:53:15.472
You just start and then you hope so.

00:53:15.472 --> 00:53:20.550
I'm not going to keep talking because I don't want to dilute what you said, which I thought was so beautifully said.

00:53:20.550 --> 00:53:22.503
Thank you very, very much.

00:53:22.503 --> 00:53:24.427
So, tina.

00:53:24.427 --> 00:53:27.934
Um, if people want to you, where would you like them to go?

00:53:28.820 --> 00:53:33.211
Well, first of all, hold on.

00:53:33.211 --> 00:53:36.951
I'm just going to put my Do Not Disturb on again.

00:53:36.951 --> 00:53:42.349
I'm Tina Davidson, so it's tinadavidsoncom.

00:53:42.349 --> 00:53:46.105
You can always write me, just get on the internet.

00:53:46.105 --> 00:53:50.070
There are ways of getting to me on the website.

00:53:50.070 --> 00:53:59.606
I'm on Facebook, instagram and you can buy my book on Amazon, and then you have some links.

00:53:59.606 --> 00:54:09.815
You can go on your favorite streaming service, whatever that is Apple Music, amazon or Spotify or I don't know all the ones.

00:54:09.815 --> 00:54:11.525
Soundcloud, I think, was another one.

00:54:11.525 --> 00:54:15.849
Yes, but your streaming services have my music.

00:54:15.849 --> 00:54:22.909
Just search under Tina Davidson, composer, and then SoundCloud is a special.

00:54:22.909 --> 00:54:28.626
You just go soundcloudcom and then look for my music and then those are free.

00:54:28.626 --> 00:54:34.210
I don't think you download them, but you can listen to that site as well.

00:54:35.032 --> 00:54:37.186
Fantastic, so plenty of places where people can go.

00:54:37.186 --> 00:54:41.230
Yes, so we're going to wind up soon.

00:54:41.230 --> 00:54:53.927
Is there anything about inclusion which, if you don't say it in a couple of days, you're going to kick yourself because you'll?

00:54:53.947 --> 00:54:55.130
think, oh, that one.

00:54:55.130 --> 00:54:57.454
Well, I'll tell you I can.

00:54:57.454 --> 00:55:08.074
Um, I was asked by a podcaster actually I think he was in new zealand or australia to come up for 10 things that I learned as a composer and artist.

00:55:08.074 --> 00:55:14.731
And it's funny because for composers, I rewrote the list and I have like 20 things that I learned.

00:55:14.731 --> 00:55:23.514
But my first one is trust and value your own creativity.

00:55:23.514 --> 00:55:32.621
You know just, this takes time to be patient, but trust and value that Feed your mind, body and soul.

00:55:32.621 --> 00:55:38.039

Ep 152: Tina Davidson ~ Unveiling Secrets and Harmonising Identity ~ a Symphony of Life and Inclusion

Listen On

Recent Episodes