Taylor Davis (born March 20, 1987) is an American violinist, arranger, and composer. Davis is best known for her violin-covers of music from video games featured on her YouTube channel "Taylor Davis", where she also features performances of her own arrangements of music from films and musicals. From July 2013, she has begun releasing her own original compositions as well. During 2012, Davis released two albums and an assortment of singles. Her seventh album, was the first one exclusively with original music; it was crowdfunded, and the album, entitled ''Taylor Davis'', was released in March 2015 and debuted at #10 on the ''Billboard'' Classical Charts.

Biography

Taylor Davis was born on March 20, 1987 at

Western Springs, Illinois Western Springs is a village located in Cook County, Illinois, United States, and is a suburb of Chicago. As of the 2010 census, the village had a total population of 12,975. It is twinned with Rugeley, Staffordshire, United Kingdom. In July 1962 ...

. Davis started playing violin at the age of 8, while in elementary school. While in high school, Davis began playing video games music. Later, Davis attended

Gonzaga University Gonzaga University (GU) () is a private Jesuit university in Spokane, Washington. It is accredited by the Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities. Founded in 1887 by Joseph Cataldo, an Italian-born priest and Jesuit missionary, the uni ...

, where she worked to introduce video game music to the college orchestra and quartet members. Davis graduated from

with a degree in Public Relations, and a minor degree in Violin Performance. After attending college, she intended to get into the profession of scoring music for games, films, or other media. It did not work out at the time, so she took a business job for a short period, while at the same time posting YouTube videos on the side (as a classically trained violinist). Davis worked as a PR person for a non-profit organization until November 2011; and then quit her job to concentrate all her efforts into developing her career through YouTube.

Career and activity on YouTube

Davis started her first

YouTube YouTube is a global online video sharing and social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by Google, and is the second most ...

channel under the pseudonym "ViolinTay" on April 30, 2010. In October 2013, the Critical Hit band's debut took place. This is a group led by Jason Hayes (keyboardist and composer of ''

World of Warcraft ''World of Warcraft'' (''WoW'') is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) released in 2004 by Blizzard Entertainment. Set in the ''Warcraft'' fantasy universe, ''World of Warcraft'' takes place within the world of Azeroth ...

'' video game's soundtrack) and Michael Gluck (under the pseudonym "Piano Squall"). Davis joined the band in the same year, and the other band members are: composer

Adam Gubman Adam Gubman (born April 7, 1979) is an American songwriter, arranger, and composer. Gubman's work varies from music from video games to pop and to television program's soundtrack, and it has been featured on dozens of television shows and comm ...

, keyboardist

David Paich David Frank Paich (born June 25, 1954) is an American musician, best known as the co-founder, principal songwriter, keyboardist and singer of the rock band Toto since 1977. He wrote or co-wrote much of Toto's original material, including the ba ...

( Toto's co-founder); violinists Michelle Jade, Caroline Campbell and Molly Rogers; bassists Carlitos del Puerto and Tim MacDonald; cellists Tina Guo, Ginger Murphy and Leah Metzler; percussionists Doug Belote, Joel Taylor and Kevin Dooley; guitarists Kole Hicks, Nita Strauss, Chet Stevens and

Laurence Juber Laurence Ivor Juber (born 12 November 1952) is an English musician, fingerstyle guitarist and studio musician. He played guitar in the rock band Wings from 1978 to 1981. Biography Early life Born in Stepney, East London, Juber was raised and ...

; pianist Salome Scheidegger; flautists Sara Andon, Shannon Canchola, and the " World Music"

woodwinds Woodwind instruments are a family of musical instruments within the greater category of wind instruments. Common examples include flute, clarinet, oboe, bassoon, and saxophone. There are two main types of woodwind instruments: flutes and reed ...

- reeds-wind synthesizers specialist

Pedro Eustache Pedro Eustache (born August 18, 1959) is a Venezuelan-born flautist, reed player, world woodwind player, composer, and instrument maker. He has more than seven years of symphonic experience and a collection of around 600 instruments from all ...

. The band published its first album in the same period.

Discography

Albums

* Gaming Fantasy (2012) * An Enchanted Christmas (2012) * Game On: 2 Player Mode (2012) – Taylor Davis & Lara de Wit * Legendary Movie Music (2013) * Melodies of Hyrule: Songs from The Legend of Zelda (2013) * The Anime and Game Collection (2014) * Taylor Davis (2015) * Odyssey (2016) * Songs of Christmas (2017) * Melodies of a Magic Kingdom (2018) * Cover to Cover, Vol 1 (2021) * Songs of the Lost Woods (2021)

Singles

Awards and nominations

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Davis, Taylor 1987 births 21st-century American violinists Living people People from Western Springs, Illinois American women composers American YouTubers 21st-century American composers 21st-century American women musicians 21st-century women composers