Kate: 0:23
Hello and welcome to The Gale Hill Radio Hour. I’m your host Kate Jones, and I have the pleasure today of interviewing author Tonya Penrose and musician David Bazo. They live on different continents, yet they’re friends and also collaborators on an unusual and delightful project. That would be “Venetian Rhapsody,” a romantic novel with a companion soundtrack album. How cool is that? Welcome to the show, Tonya and David!
Tonya: 1:01
We’ve been excited about coming on.
Kate: 1:04
One of you lives in the United States, the other in Spain. How did you two meet?
Tonya: 1:11
So for me, it was Twitter, which is now called X, that I first learned about David and his incredible music. I ended up buying an album after visiting his page and he and I had tweeted back and forth. I bought an album and I was totally taken with his brilliance, and the music is transportative. So transportative that there was one particular song that I listened to one day, when I was sitting on my porch chair looking out at the lake, that sent me to Venice and a story started to unfold. I knew that this guy was someone special that I really needed to spend time with and get to know, and so that was the beginning. It was his music that brought us together, and David can take it from there with our story.
David: 2:16
Yes, for me it was very special to meet Tonya because when we talked for the first time, we exchanged messages and also collaborations. I was interested in what she was writing, and she told me she was interested in my music and we developed a friendship from there. And one day I received this message from Tonya, telling me that she was able to listen to one of my songs while being on her porch gazing at the lake, and one of those songs took her into a trip to Venice and she was able to envision a story. She was able to meet — because we don’t say create, we meet these characters, both of them — and she met Eduardo and Sofia, and she was aware of their story and she was able to tell me even the names, all the parts of the story, and she was very moved by this song. The connection with the song was immediately magical for her, and she wanted me to know. And, of course, imagine for an author that another colleague author tells you that she’s been touched and moved by what you do to a level that she was able to get inspired by my music. For me, it was a fantastic moment.
Kate: 4:05
Wow. So what happened next? You have this friendship. You started talking back and forth. What happened?
Tonya: 4:16
So I started to write the story and early on, and I was listening to the song “Venetian Reverie” as I was writing. Over and over, I’ve never had such an obsession over a song. It was an incredible song to inspire the story to keep unfolding. And so early on, I thought I have got to give credit to the song and how it’s inspiring the story to come forward. So I asked David, could I please use the title in the book? And he goes, "Let me think about it for a little bit and I’ll get back to you." And I thought he’s going to say no. No, he gets back to me with what he calls a spark of an amazing idea. And so, David, you share your spark now.
David: 5:10
Yeah, I was so touched and so moved by what Tonya has shared with me about this story and I have the idea of why keep just this thing of one song mentioned in the story? Why not write a full soundtrack for the fantastic story she was writing? And I told this to her and she was amazed by the possibility. That’s what it was the first time we got the idea that this is going to develop in a way that, on that moment, we even can have the idea of understanding where all this is going to lead us, and it led us to a fantastic collaboration.
Kate: 6:14
Have you ever heard of other soundtracks to books? That’s the thing. It’s such an unusual idea that you came up with.
David: 6:25
OK, the initial idea is what Tonya did with the book, because she wanted to get the story and the music together. She can tell exactly what she did.
Tonya: 6:41
So what I did is, as I was sitting there writing the story and after I got the call with David’s amazing idea of “let me write a soundtrack for your book,” it took me a week to recover from that call, of what he was offering to do. Because, let’s face it, I have really good taste when it comes to picking composers and musicians and performers, so this was like an unbelievable dream for me to have him come back. So, as I’m writing the story, I told him let me write the story and then I want to send you the novel, the manuscript, to read, to make sure you like what I’m doing. I didn’t want to take anything for granted here. So, as I was writing the idea, I got a spark. The idea came to include music being played while Sofia and Eduardo are moving through their time in Venice, getting to know each other, and the romance is unfolding. So there were 20 or 22 places in the story where I included music that they were listening to, and somewhere along the way, in one of David and my video chats, I said, “I’m doing this, what do you think?” And he’s like, “Well, I think it’s a great idea. What kind of music are you having me write, though? And I said, “I’m taking liberties with you,” and he said, “I’m starting to worry how this is going." And I’m like, “Just wait and let me get it done.” So I wrote the 22 scenes out and typed them and sent them to him so that he could see what instruments were playing and the overall mood, the setting and all of that, and David can tell you how he received those 20 scenes of music.
David: 8:34
Yeah, that was the fun part for Tonya and the hard part for me. Let’s say I had to face restrictions because when she passed me the scenes, she has envisioned what kind of music to go with every scene, and not only the kind of music but the instrumentation and the arrangements also were present on her script. So I have to face a soundtrack where, for example, I have to write a tango and I have to write flamenco, and I said, “Wait, wait, wait, wait, Tonya, I have no idea of how to write a tango. I never wrote a tango before. I don’t even have an idea of how to do it. And you even go further and tell me I have to include violin, guitar and water. And what do you want me to do?” And it was something very common. On every song, I have to follow what the script says the song has to be included. And it was for me, it was a nightmare at the beginning, but a great performance process and creativity process, because it took me out of my comfort zone. And I have to thank Tonya because of that, because this album is like it is, because Tonya envisioned the album as well on her story.
Tonya: 10:14
I have to tell this one story. There were many stories, but this one was was really hilarious. One afternoon, David gets me on a video chat and he’s working through, you know, recording the music and composing. And he’s like, “What is this Spanish guitar with Ernesto? I don’t do a Spanish guitar.” I said, “What? Of course you do a Spanish guitar. You live in Spain! What do you mean you can’t do a Spanish guitar?” And he’s like, “I do many things, I’m classical.” So I get a class real quick on what David can do and how I took liberties to do a Spanish guitar and include that into the rendition. What does he do? He rises to the occasion and does another impossibly beautiful song with the guitar. And the tango. He did one tango and, David, didn’t you do something else?
David: 11:16
Yeah, for me the tango moment was the most difficult one. I delayed the production of this particular song to the end of the album and I was afraid I was not able to deliver what Tonya needed and in the end I came with two versions of the tango. I include both in the story because there is so, so much fun in this story. For me, the difficult part of the creation of this soundtrack is Tonya’s writing has a lot of humor, a lot of rhythm. I used to call her a “little Hitchcock” because her novels are very cinematic. When you read her books, you are watching a movie. And that’s the difficult part for me, because I had to be able to include fun, to include humor in the songs. And we deliver this in a very difficult way because, as I told Tonya and I’m telling you now, it took me out of my comfort zone. I’m a very dramatic, a very melancholic kind of musician and it was completely different direction. But for me, it was easy to embrace because I have Tonya's script all the way around with this story.
Kate: 12:52
Did you learn how to … I mean, how did you learn how to do those things that you had not previously done, like the tango, the Spanish guitar, that kind of thing? How did you go about that?
David: 13:07
Well, I do play Spanish guitar. The problem I had is that I didn’t have a Spanish guitar on that particular moment, so I had to borrow a good one. I see you can see here that I have lots of guitars, yes, but I didn’t have a Spanish guitar on that particular moment so I had to borrow one, and that was the biggest problem with that. The main problem for me was to embrace different styles I was not used to working with. And how did I do it? I just get into some studio of how these particular pieces work on paper and I also let it flow from the story. That’s what I did, and I think it works pretty well.
Kate: 14:07
It works wonderfully well. Your music is beautiful, it’s fun in different pieces, parts of it, and it’s so evocative of the story. It is just incredible.
David: 14:20
I think my big success here is on my point of view, I was able to reflect what Tonya’s story is about and the most important moments of the story. For me, the goal for me on this work was to envision Tonya’s story in music and deliver what the story needed to have. Not what I wanted to have, not something that’s just beautiful, but what Tonya’s story is about to people who read it. That’s what I’m trying to do and I don’t know if Tonya agrees with me. She can say it now if she wants to.
Tonya: 15:12
I could have not wished for something better than what you did. It's forever on my heart. But you must ask David how he paid me back for the tango and the Spanish guitar. Because it was paid back. So a couple of phone calls where he took liberties in the songs of what he added. So he has to tell you how he paid me back for that.
Kate: 15:44
Yes, David?
David: 15:47
Well, you know, when you are creating something, you have an image in your mind of how a particular part must sound like, and Tonya gave me everything. You have to use this, this, this, and you have to do this style. So for a moment I got into the mood that some songs needed something Tonya hasn’t reflected in the orchestration. For example, there is a tag where I include a singer, an opera singer, a friend of mine. I took something I thought Tonya will find funny, but I then discovered it worried her so much. I told her I will have a masked ball in one of the songs and Tonya got mad. Tonya can tell you.
Tonya: 16:56
So he calls me up and he goes, “Tonya, I’m taking liberties now.” I’m like, “No, no, I get to take the liberties.” He goes, “No, it’s my turn to take liberties.” He goes, “I don’t know how to tell you this. Maybe I’ll call you later.” I said, “No, you’ve got to tell me right now." So after about five minutes going back and forth trying to get him to confess what he has done, he goes, “I’ve added muskets." I said, “David, this is not set in the Revolutionary War. What do you mean you’ve added muskets to this song?" He goes, “Let me play for you and let you listen.” And of course he played. I’m watching him perform and I’m like, dadgummit, he’s right again. He’s always right. The muskets are a given. They need to be in the song and they worked beautifully.
Kate: 17:49
Which song is that? Which one is that in?
David: 17:54
is that in I have a masked ball because we are in Venice after all. So I have to reflect that it was not in the story in a concrete way, but I made it happen as well.
Kate: 18:10
What is the connection between Venice and muskets? David: 18:18
Yeah, masked ball. You know that Venice has this carnival festival?
Kate: 18:26
Oh, the masked balls. OK!
David: 18:28
Yeah, it’s related to that. Tonya can tell you, because the two characters of the book share a common past, so that’s where it came from. She can tell you.
Tonya: 18:48
Yes, they have a flashback of attending a masked ball many years before, in another lifetime, and so the music that David wrote for when Sofia has that flashback was absolutely right on the money. I was blown away when he sent me the piece to listen to. And again, his writing — whether it’s “Venetian" or one of his other albums, he transports us as a listener like no composer I’ve ever listened to, and that’s what he kept delivering, song after song after song, for “Venetian Rhapsody.” Just incredible work by him.
Kate: 19:33
That is marvelous, so marvelous. So, David, you said a lot about how you’ve grown from this project. How about you, Tonya?
Tonya: 19:47
That is a really insightful question based on how this project unfolded for me. I’ve grown by first realizing that the impossible is possible, and that’s what “Venetian Rhapsody” is out there proving. What we did, you know, the friends and the family members, the few that we shared it with early on were like, “You can’t do this. How you going to make this work? This is crazy.” And yet, all along the way, David and I had this amazing, and he calls it magical, and it was and is still magical and unexplainable, just like Eduardo and Sofia's romance is unexplainable. What we had happen was unexplainable. Never, at any point during the long journey of creating both of these works, did we doubt that it could work. And I wrote under a publisher and David obviously produced his own album here, and so the marriage of that in itself should have sent us running for the hills, because that shouldn’t work either. And yet the doors just kept opening and the impossible became possible because it was our destiny to do this. We felt that it was never an option not to do it. Once David had the spark and I heard that song, that was it, you know. And talk about growing. That’s accepting something when I’m such a realist that something like this could come. That was a big risk for me personally, as an author too.
Kate: 21:30
So, from what I understand, the two cannot be sold together because of the rights, the international rights and everything else. That would be very complicated. So how do people get the book and how do people get the album? I got them, but I want to hear you say how people can go get these.
David: 21:58
Well, you can have both on Amazon at the moment, but the album is on every streaming platform if you want to, and there’s also a double CD that I produced so can be ordered through my website, and Tonya’s book can be ordered through Amazon. And you can get both products together if you want to because we have to face this, because we wanted to have an editor release both formats and be able to be sold together. But there was not that possibility because what you said is right, there is a right not common in Europe and United States and you have to face that. So we have to produce the album and the book separately, in different ways.
Kate: 23:00
Right. Anything else you want to say about that, Tonya?
Tonya: 23:05
No, David did an excellent job enlightening about how the process worked, and you know, working with a publisher is what I had to do and what I chose and wanted to do, and was very grateful to this publisher because they allowed us to launch the book and CD on the same day and that in itself, trust me, was a big coordination process. Again, the impossible was possible that that even happened, and we’re just really proud of the project and what we were able to offer, you know, to people out there that want to have a fully immersive experience, probably like they've not had before.
Kate: 23:50
Yes, that’s wonderful. Do you envision this as a movie with your soundtrack, David? Do you, Tonya? I think it would be perfect, as I was telling my husband today on our walk. Wouldn’t that be a great movie?
David: 24:08
Yeah, for me, this is the perfect movie, the perfect love movie, and I will be delighted to see Tonya’s story on the screen. I would love to because I think it deserves it.
Kate: 24:29
I agree.
Tonya: 24:32
From your mouth to God’s ear. Yes, for both of us.
Kate: 24:34
It’s a great story. Is there anything else you’d like to say?
David: 24:40
Yeah, I would like to say something. I would like to say that what we achieved with this project is very different than what you have found between music and books in the past, because, as Tonya told you, she got the music into the story. This is not music behind a story, this is the characters leadng the music into the story, and I think this is the important part of it. So, for example, when Sofia and Eduardo go to the Botanical Gardens in Venice, they attend a concert and Tonya tells you exactly what they are doing and what kind of music they are going to listen to, and then you have this music for you on the album. And this is a very, very, very talented thing to do, because no one has given the possibility of the music to get into the story as Tonya did. So I’m very grateful because of that.
Kate: 25:52
Yes, they’re integrated.
David: 25:55
Yeah, completely.
Kate: 26:00
Well, how about you, Tonya? It’s a wonderful story. It’s just very engaging and it just keeps you reading.
Tonya: 26:09
Thank you so much. I got quite taken by the characters, all of them, and it was hard for me to wrap this particular book up. I didn’t want to leave them, I wanted to stay. And again, David’s music took the book to a place that was so elevated and so atmospheric. How will I ever top something like this after what he gifted to my story and to me? I don’t know how I could ever top that for readers. I really don’t. So I’m forever in his debt. I am forever in his debt.
David: 26:58
OK, but you have to bear in mind that you are the boss in this project, so I want you to acknowledge that right now.
Tonya: 27:09
Good, OK, so let me make it clear he has been the commander all along, all along. I knew he was going to try and stick this at the end, but everyone listening, he is the commander and I have saluted every step of the way. Just believe it.
Kate: 27:28
He danced to the tune you wrote, so I don’t know about that! David: Yeah, correct.
Kate: That’s wonderful. Well, I just have so enjoyed this and I know you have a lot of other projects and if you want to say anything about them, or people can discover them for themselves on your websites. But I’m just opening this up to you in the final moments.
Tonya: 28:02
David?
David: 28:03
Yeah, your turn.
Tonya: 28:06
Oh well, two things. First of all, I have eight books out currently right now. I would invite anyone to go and visit Amazon or any book retailer or my website to check them out, and thank you for that. But most importantly, I would love to invite everyone to discover David’s music the way I have, and that is really what I want to leave as my message is go fall in love with this guy the way I have, and his music and his brilliance.
Kate: 28:43
Well, I already have, so I will follow, I will get more of your music. I found “Venetian Rhapsody” on Apple Music, so that’s what I had on my phone and we were just walking, walking down in the neighborhood with a soundtrack.
David: 29:02
Well, that’s fantastic. That’s fantastic. No, I have to insist on this point. This is an immersive experience like never before, and when I’m saying this, I’m saying this because you will be able to understand this project as both things together, not just music for a book or a book inspired by music. This is something that was created along the lines of both projects together, and this is very, very, very special for us, and we want people to discover it and enjoy it, as we have done creating it.
Tonya: 29:46
I agree. Thank you for that, yes.
Kate: 29:50
So wonderful. Well, thank you both for being on the show today. It has been a huge pleasure.
Tonya: 29:57
Thank you for for inviting us to have so much fun today and share our journey with “Venetian Rhapsody.”
David: 30:13
Same for me and I will thank you for this moment. It’s very special for us every time we have the chance to talk about “Venetian Rhapsody.” Thank you.
Kate: 30:21
Well, thank you for sharing the story of your friendship and your collaboration, your creativity. Both of you, your creativity is immense and there will be so much more, I have no doubt, that you will be putting out in the world. So thank you.
This is Kate Jones with The Gale Hill Radio Hour. Until next time, thanks for joining us. Please share this episode with anyone who enjoys a good romance and evocative music.