Published: March 06, 2009 10:37 pm      

PEOPLE PROFILE: Teenage twins Tyler and Kyle Davis excel in music, sports

Twins Tyler and Kyle Davis play the piano, football and basketball and sing for Lockport High School.

Students can tell the 15-year-old sophomores apart because Tyler wears red and Kyle wears blue — when he isn’t dressed in black. “It started when they were babies,” said mom, Jackie Davis. “My husband (Vincent) and I would go to rehearsals and I would sing. He could tell whose bottles are whose. Tyler’s name ends in an R and we gave him a red bottle. Kyle in blue.”

Instead of dressing Kyle and Tyler identically, mom started them in red and blue. When mom bought young Kyle a green shirt, he looked at her and said, “I don’t wear that color.”

Tyler sings bass and Kyle sings tenor in the chorus, but they are versatile enough to do both.

“Their range is so great they can do either,” said Connie Allison, the director of the Symphonic Chorale. “They are great musicians. They read music well and we can move them around. Music teachers love them. They are very versatile.”

Mom Jackie Davis, a native of Pittsburgh, once was the featured vocalist for the Venango County Chorus. Vincent Davis, an investment banker, is from Jamestown. The parents met at Cornell University, where dad played football for the Big Red and mom was on a music scholarship.

“He’s the athlete. I’m the musician,” Jackie said. “We didn’t push our children towards either of those. When they showed promise for both, we encouraged them. Whenever I sat down to play the piano, I encouraged them.”

Jobs with National Fuel caused the Davis family move to Western New York. The twins were born March 31, 1993, four minutes apart at Mercy Hospital in Buffalo. Jackie and Vincent have two older boys, Vincent II, who is now 21 and attends Cornell, and Marcus, 18, who is a freshman at St. Lawrence.

“I expected a girl out of it at least,” said Jackie, who volunteers at LCTV and teaches at the First Baptist Church. Jackie studied music and biology at Cornell with a concentration in environmental studies.

“It’s just a wonderful family,” said interim pastor Abe Dueck. “She is a wonderful advocate for the community and the kids are very blessed with talent.” Vincent II plays guitar and Marcus plays drums.

Tyler and Kyle studied piano at the Lockport Music Center and push each other to do better. “If Tyler plays the piano and I’m not, I don’t want him to get ahead of me,” Kyle said. “I’ll start playing the piano more if he’s playing more. We kind of motivate each other.”

Tyler also plays the clarinet and Kyle plays the saxophone in the high school concert band. Their favorite is the piano, and that’s what they play at home.

“You can play so many chords and harmonize and do more stuff than bass clarinet,” Tyler said.

Tyler enjoys playing classical music, but offered a contemporary tune, Jim Brickman’s “Part of My Heart.” Kyle played “Boom Town” after nailing “Chop Sticks” in a duet with his mom. He plays jazz for fun.

They play background music before singing with the chorus.

“Both are great kids, easy going,” Allison said. “It’s fun to have them around. Kids enjoy working with them. They are just what the group needs to succeed,” the chorale director said.

Kyle plays tight end and outside linebacker on the junior varsity football team and Tyler plays linebacker and running back. The 5-foot-10, 155-pound twins are shooting guards on the JV basketball team.

They were invited to participate in regional piano competition at Frontier High School on April 24. If they score high enough, they will qualify for the state competition next fall at Fredonia. As members of the select chorus, they sang with the all-county chorus as freshmen.

Contact reporter Bill Wolcott at 439-9222, ext. 6246.