Sonya Trevizo’s “The Education of a Musician’s Daughter”: Faith in the Silent Spaces

By BradQuan Copeland.

“Would you consider reading and writing a review of my recently published memoir entitled ‘The Education of a Musician’s Daughter?’”

That was the message I woke up to on Facebook from local author Sonya Trevizo on a chilled, cloudy November morning. I lay there in utter disbelief at the reality of the request, especially since I’d told my cousin just a week or so earlier, enveloped in the half-lucid haze of Sunday Night Football, that I hoped to evolve into a touchstone that people could consult with to edit their stories and review their work.

Lost for words at the sight of such blatant universal manifestation, I reacted instinctively with the astonished emoji before typing, “Wow! I’m honored to be asked for such a thing. Of course I will.” I then followed up with, “Have you read my reviews?”

She hadn’t yet, but after browsing my Facebook page, she identified with my perspective. She also appreciated that I was local, since she was trying to connect more deeply with the community as she promoted her memoir.

She agreed to meet up with me later that evening to provide a complimentary copy. Upon arrival, she welcomed me with a gracious, almost timeless warmth, the kind carried only by someone who has truly lived within the depths of their purest form.

Her smile engulfed me in a hushed, tranquil affection reminiscent of the tender, luminous wash that softly pearled from Monet’s canvases at his MoMA exhibit in the summer of 2022.

She invited me into her petite, character-rich, working-class abode, where a rustic and savory aroma of tomato sauce laced with a bouquet of herbs lingered in the room as CNN quietly played in the background. We exchanged a bit of friendly banter before I went on my way.

Unfolding in introspective fragments rather than dramatic climaxes, the memoir moves through emotive recollection and sensation rather than chronology. As I absorbed it, I lost myself within its carefully crafted depth, my consciousness drawn into a liminal portal where my senses recalibrated and my body fell away, as though I’d been uploaded into her inward terrain.

“The Education of a Musician’s Daughter” moves beyond the overindulgence of self-portraiture, thriving instead as a testimony of spiritual resilience, faith clenched through disillusionment, molding an identity grounded in the intimate spaces between music, family, and cultural history.

Raised as an only child, Sonya grappled with both intrapersonal and interpersonal challenges after finding herself in a foreign landscape when her father, a prominent music teacher and performer, relocated the family from New York City to Schenectady in 1957. At just eight years old, she felt futile in that new environment, flopping helplessly with the desperation of a fish out of water.

Though deeply attuned, her father’s presence was felt without display. His work required frequent travel, but she never processed his absence as loneliness. She heard him practice often; music hummed through the walls, and his love and understanding lived largely in silence. Their communication remained limited not by distance, but by her own reluctance to confide in him, though she sensed he understood her more deeply than her mother did. 

She held him as infallible, a reverence that, in retrospect, may have deepened that silence. And though her mother loved her deeply, she was quietly imprisoned within unreconciled trauma that fueled emotional volatility, forging a space where Sonya was seen, but not truly heard. “I came to understand that my mother was carrying unresolved grief,” Trevizo said. “She tried to be superhuman, and no one can live that way without breaking.”

She found refuge within the utopic confines of her imagination, accompanied by the everlasting pulse of faith, which acted as a shield as she grew beneath the dense, echoing residue of the Holocaust. “That inner world became both my shelter and my limitation,” she told me. “It protected me when reality felt unbearable, even as it kept me from coping with it directly.”

That spiritual grounding took early form through her Hebrew school teachings under her esteemed mentor, Zev Weiss, a Holocaust survivor who would later found the Holocaust Educational Foundation. At Hebrew school, she encountered the story of Joseph, whose unwavering resolve left a lasting impression on her.

As she explained to me, “I was impressed by Joseph because he was not discouraged by his overwhelming problems. Without hesitation, he forged ahead despite seemingly insurmountable obstacles. He set an example for me because I realized I had allowed myself to become overwhelmed by problems that were minuscule compared to his. I came to understand that I had a choice. Instead of letting myself be defeated by my circumstances, I could respond to them with positive action.”

That lesson was further deepened by the silent, primeval force of Zev himself. The numerical stamp branded into his arm was quietly revealed during summer months when short sleeves exposed what was never spoken of, yet never allowed to erode his sense of purpose. That reflects the enduring vigor flaring through the veins of their tight-knit community across generations, where personal faith and collective survival are insurmountably intertwined.

One reason I have always respected the Jewish community is that no matter where they were scattered throughout history, they preserved their traditions and beliefs. It is a value system Sonya internalized early and carried forward, never giving in to assimilation, gripping hold of a thin, yet sturdy thread of hope that carried her people from hateful ruin toward the promised land.

The same thread that cradled Sonya through the disillusionment of her formative years carried her into the throbbing ambition of collegiate learning. Her path, though not linear, became rich in abstraction and discovery. It was then that a cherished friend told her of a program allowing students to declare their own major, a route she had not known existed, which ignited her nonconforming biorhythms and gave her the courage to resist the traditional degree her parents and society expected of her. That revelation guided her instead toward a discipline that fully embodied the enlightenment of her pastoral essence: photography.

As I traveled through the glorious uncertainties of early adulthood alongside her, I learned that turmoil does not defile meaning. Instead, it can paint the spirit with a wisdom that emits luminous life, a truth the memoir ultimately reveals through the evolving contours of her relationship with her parents, mentors, and friends.

In turn, I reflected on my own relationship with my parents and found solace in a simple, often-overlooked truth: even as they are raising you, they are still learning too. That realization surfaces by the narrative’s end, as her mother, though never fully understanding her, finally learns to accept her. That acceptance further amplifies the quiet flame long fueled by the innate awareness of her artistic father, whose footsteps she followed while still marching to the beat of her own drum.

I encourage all existential seekers, no matter age, race, or creed, to invest in this literary work, which to me exists as a nurturing reminder of that truth, traced through the trials and transformations of Sonya’s numinous metamorphosis. Even in retirement, she still possesses the childlike impulse to ask why, an instinct that draws her ever closer to the marrow of spiritual anthropology.

Looking back, that Facebook message wasn’t just a request to review a memoir. I believe it was an opening. A life void of faith births a strange space where aimless pleasure eclipses purpose. In contrast, Sonya’s life stands as an invitation into one assiduously sculpted by faith, imagination, and endurance.

With another book in the works, Sonya leaves readers on edge as she pushes forth on her visionary quest.