Roger Davidson

Roger Davidson was born in Paris in 1952 to a French mother and an American father. The family moved to New York when he was a year old. He started playing piano on his own at 4, and taking violin lessons at 8. Although he taught himself how to read and write music, Davidson learned to play through improvising, a practice that has served him well as a jazz pianist. He attended Boston University, studying with David Del Tredici and Theodore Antoniou among others, and earning a master’s degree in composition in 1980. After graduating, he studied with early baroque music scholar Sidney Beck.It was at his suggestion, that Davidson enrolled at Westminster Choir College, in Princeton, New Jersey. However, while at Westminster he also began writing choral music, which soon bloomed into the expression of a personal mission. After graduating, Davidson spent a summer in Germany, studying voice and teaching improvisation at the Lichtenberger Institut (near Darmstadt). Returning to New York, he unexpectedly reconnected with the late Helen Keane, jazz producer and longtime manager of pianist Bill Evans. Davidson had met Keane while he was a child. She was the mother of a schoolmate and friend. Keane had not only given Davidson his first Evans album, but also gave him a glimpse of another world.