Kate Davis / Jesse Ruben

Kate Davis picked up a violin at age 5 and a bass at 13. She joined the Portland Youth Philharmonic before puberty and the Grammy Jazz Ensemble before adolescence.

By the time she graduated high school, Davis won the Presidential Scholar in the Arts Award and a full ride to the Manhattan School of Music. By the time she graduated college, she received ASCAP’s Robert Allen Award and slots at Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center.

As a young adult, the virtuoso claimed enthusiastic endorsements from NPR, MTV, PBS, and BBC, as well as invitations to the stage from Herbie Hancock, Ben Folds, Alison Krauss, and Jeff Goldblum. Most recently, she cowrote Sharon Van Etten’s hit single “Seventeen,” and contributed to the soundtrack for the film Five Feet Apart.

She plans to release her debut indie rock album Trophy in November. Throughout 12 tumultuous tracks, Davis poetically reflects on the intricacies of what it means to live, ruminating on topics close to her heart—identity, self-worth, and loss.

Brooklyn singer-songwriter Jesse Ruben has a simple and direct message: I can. You can. We can. When Ruben wrote his song “We Can,” he had just run the New York City Marathon and hoped to inspire others to start running. A few months after releasing the track, an elementary school in Vancouver, Canada, reached out, saying they had been playing it to inspire students. They asked Ruben to fly in and perform the song for their school, and so began The We Can Project.