Tessa Dawson

Tessa Dawson is 16 and living in the Seattle Washington area. Music is her everything. Tessa always has a song on her lips. When she was little she would often write her own songs and perform them in front of her family and friends.

When she was 11, music truly became her voice. She was told she had a tumor the size of a golf ball on the left side of her brain. They had to take out important pieces of her brain to remove the tumor; pieces that helped her learn and comprehend new concepts in school, understand the things she read in her textbooks, but most importantly communicate at a level that most kids her age do without a second thought. She felt trapped in her own head. However, in her words,

“When I sing, all of those struggles seem to disappear and I feel free again.”

Learning new songs helped her with her memory and learning problems. Tessa is tenacious and does not back away from a challenge. Through perseverance she has gone from struggling to remember her own address and phone number to memorizing and performing full monologues in the school play, even playing the part of “Dorothy” in the Wizard of Oz.

Tessa has a rich soulful voice that defies her small frame. Her dream is to have the chance to move people through her music.