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Tara Davidson
Tara Davidson is a JUNO Award-winning alto and soprano saxophonist who has performed around the world at such prestigious venues as New York City’s Carnegie Hall, the acclaimed North Sea Jazz Festival in the Netherlands, the JZ Jazz Club in Shanghai, China, and The Kennedy Center, in Washington, D.C.
As a bandleader, Davidson has produced seven recordings since 2004 and performed on approximately forty recordings as a side musician. Five of her seven recordings as a leader or co-leader (Carn Davidson 9) have been nominated by the JUNO Awards for “Jazz Album of the Year”. Davidson has been associated with seven additional JUNO nominations for her work as a side musician with Ernesto Cervini's "Joy" project, Andrew Downing’s Otterville, Ernesto Cervini’s Turboprop (x2), the Mike Murley Septet, CBC Records’ “Jazz Legends Live” project, and Jens Lindemann’s Order of Canada Band (Yamaha Big Band member). In 2020, Davidson won a JUNO Award for Jazz Album of the Year: Group as a member of Ernesto Cervini’s Turboprop.
Some of Davidson’s other honours include being selected as the lead alto saxophonist for the Canadian National Jazz Orchestra in 2022 and for the European Broadcasting Union’s European Youth Jazz Orchestra in 2008, being selected as one of five finalists in the Mary Lou Williams Women in Jazz saxophone competition in 2008 and being selected as one of three finalists for the Toronto Arts Foundation’s Emerging Jazz Artist Award in 2015. In 2013, Davidson was awarded the Ontario Arts Council’s Chalmers Professional Development Grant to study with saxophone legend, Dick Oatts, in New York City.
Davidson also enjoys a diverse freelance career as a woodwind player (saxophones, clarinets, and flutes). She has worked with musical theatre companies such as Mirvish Productions in Toronto, the Stratford Festival, the Musical Stage Company, and Drayton Entertainment, and with such symphonies as the Toronto Symphony Orchestra and the National Ballet Orchestra. Studio and performance opportunities have allowed Davidson to perform alongside such artists as Oliver Jones, Joel Frahm, Tommy Banks, Jens Lindemann, Jazzmeia Horn, Emilie-Claire Barlow, Wycliffe Gordon, Phil Dwyer, Dave Douglas, Shirley Bassey, Ingrid Jenson, Christine Jensen, Brad Turner, and John Riley.
Davidson is an active educator on faculty at the University of Toronto and York University.
Awards
JUNO Award for Jazz Album of the Year: Group (as a member of Ernesto Cervini’s Turboprop, "Abundance", 2020)
JUNO nomination for Best Traditional Jazz Album of the Year (Tara Davidson, "Code Breaking", 2008) JUNO nomination for Best Traditional Jazz Album of the Year (Carn Davidson 9, "Nine", 2014) JUNO nomination for Jazz Album of the Year: Solo (Tara Davidson, "Duets", 2016) JUNO nomination for Jazz Album of the Year: Group (Carn Davidson 9, "Murphy", 2018) JUNO nomination for Jazz Album of the Year: Group (Carn Davidson 9, "The History of Us", 2023)
Gear
Tara Davidson is proud to be a Yamaha Artist and plays their Custom Z alto saxophone.
Tags
Carn Davidson 9: Reverence
by Jack Bowers
The Carn Davidson 9 is a Toronto, Canada-based nonet co-led by trombonist William Carn and saxophonist Tara Davidson whose fourth studio album, Reverence, encompasses a pair of four-part suites, one written by Carn, the other by Davidson. What is most interesting --over and above the depth and quality of the music--is that the suites are not performed sequentially but interspersed, with the first two of Davidson's themes followed by a pair of Carn originals before alternating on the remaining four ...
Continue ReadingErnesto Cervini: A Canadian Songbook
by Hrayr Attarian
Composer and drummer Ernesto Cervini is a stalwart of the Canadian creative music scene both as an artist and promoter. His ninth release as a leader, the captivating A Canadian Songbook, is a collection of seven intricate pieces, composed by him and other compatriots. Cervini, at the head of his sextet Turboprop, deftly balances collective harmony and individual expressions and delivers all with refreshing spontaneity. The leader starts off his arrangement of pianist James Hill's “Skeletons" with sparse ...
Continue ReadingErnesto Cervini's Turboprop: A Canadian Songbook
by Dan McClenaghan
Toronto-based drummer, Ernesto Cervini has a “T" theme going with the groups he leads. There is the funky, forward-thinking Tetrahedron. Then we have the terrific trio (bass, drums and saxophone) TuneTown. And the third: Turboprop, presenting their fourth album, A Canadian Songbook, which digs into the musical soul of their home turf. Turboprop is a sextet with a powerhouse three-horn front line, featuring three of Canada's finest, Tara Davidson on alto saxophone, Joel Frahm on tenor saxophone, and ...
Continue ReadingThe Nimmons Tribute: Volume 2--Generational
by Jack Bowers
If you live in Canada and are not familiar with the name Phil Nimmons, you probably have not been paying close enough attention. Nimmons, who surpassed the century mark in June 2023, is often referred to as the “Dean of Canadian Jazz," and listing his many accomplishments and awards would require far more space than is ordinarily set aside for a complete review. Suffice to say that Nimmons has been active as a composer, arranger, performer and educator longer than ...
Continue ReadingThe Nimmons Tribute: Volume 2 - Generational
by John Chacona
Anyone who listened to Canadian radio after the adoption of the so-called Canadian Content requirement in the '70s probably heard a lot of Phil Nimmons' music. To be sure, the clarinetist, composer and arranger had achieved some recognition south of the 49th parallel through his RCA recordings of the '50s but, by choosing to base his career in Toronto, he became a living symbol of Canadian jazz. When the nation celebrated the 100th anniversary of Confederation in 1967, Nimmons was ...
Continue ReadingNicky Schrire: Nowhere Girl
by Dan Bilawsky
The search for identity is a sine qua non of any artist's experience and development. But for a musician like Nicky Schrire, it goes much deeper than most. Born in London, raised in South Africa, studying and entering the professional ranks in New York and working back through her initial points of origin before relocating to Toronto in 2020, this noted vocalist-composer has established herself as a globetrotter of the first order. Stylistically, as with geography, Schrire hits multiple points ...
Continue ReadingThe Composers Collective Big Band: The Toronto Project
by Jack Bowers
The term Composers Collective is quite often a thinly veiled phrase that signifies “experimental" or “avant-garde" jazz. Thankfully, that is far from true on the Composers Collective Big Band's irrepressible The Toronto Project, which carries the listener on a buoyant and colorful musical journey through Canada's largest city, capital of the province of Ontario and home to a number of superb jazz musicians. True, there are some moments when the Collective veers from conservative to exploratory, but ...
Continue ReadingPhotos
Music
Fire (For Oatts)
From: ReverenceBy Tara Davidson
Part 1: The Road
From: MagpieBy Tara Davidson
Skeletons
From: A Canadian SongbookBy Tara Davidson
Arf
From: Volume 2 - GenerationalBy Tara Davidson
West Toronto Ode
From: The Toronto ProjectBy Tara Davidson
Traveler
From: Nowhere GirlBy Tara Davidson
Love Is For The Birds
From: Nowhere GirlBy Tara Davidson
My Shining Hour
From: AbundanceBy Tara Davidson
Granada Bus
From: RevBy Tara Davidson
The Windup
From: TurbopropBy Tara Davidson
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Tara Davidson
Location: Toronto
Instrument: Saxophone, alto
Born: 1979
