“My mother is a singer and guitarist and has an album by Frida Boccara with the song Cent Mille Chansons. As a child, this song touched me in a way that I had to do something with it.
I began to delve into the French chanson by listening to Charles Aznavour, Jacques Brel, Gilbert Bécaud, Patrick Bruel, but especially to Édith Piaf; a woman whom I experience as being fascinating and sang until her death. Her inspiration and drive inspired me. “
She continues: “I do not believe in coincidence, so French music must have crossed my path for a reason,” she says. ‘My personal path as a singer of French music began during my study of the French language.”
With dedication Davine mastered herself the finer points of singing in the French language.
This was crowned when she was named as the winner of the Concours de la Chanson in 2012. A Dutch competition, organized annually by the Alliance Française, to promote French chanson.
Following this first success, Davine released her eponymous debut album on which she sang her own versions of well-known French titles by Jean Ferrat, Édith Piaf and of course Frida Boccara.
Success also laughed at her on another plane: in 2009 she won the Dutch Model Awards. Since then she regularly appears on the international catwalks, including in Paris.
With the start of the Tour de France in 2015, from the Dutch city Utrecht, Davine recorded a version of the classic song À Bicyclette bij Yves Montand. This song quickly grew into a radio hit and dominated Dutch radio throughout the Tour of that year.
In 2016 record label Records Gramophonique contacted Davine and suggested to her to search for her own sound and to write text topics that originate in herself.
In this process, Davine was presented to producer Jan van Eerd (Ellen ten Damme, Spinvis, Wende).
This new collaboration – strengthened by author Cristal G. who later joined the team- has led to her first and actual album Renaissance.
“With Renaissance, I chose my own style with a nod to the traditional French chanson,” she explains. Adding: “In this path, we have included the choice for the cover. The photograph refers to the nudity at birth, and that is the feeling that Renaissance gives me: you could say that I was born again.“