Tony Bennett's Daughter Antonia on First Thanksgiving Without Her Dad: 'You Have to Find the Joy' (Exclusive)

Antonia Bennett will honor her late dad Tony Bennett at her upcoming solo performance on Nov. 30 in his beloved hometown of New York City

As Antonia Bennett prepares for her first Thanksgiving and holiday season without her dad Tony Bennett, she's keeping a piece of advice he always gave her in the back of her mind: "Never look back, always look forward."

"I don't know if that's true or not," Antonia tells PEOPLE over the phone from Los Angeles. "But I definitely think you have to remember to find the joy in things and look at the blessings you have in your life. Grief hasn't been a straight line, but I feel blessed that I was able to have my dad in my life for as long as I did, and that he lived such a long and full life."

Since Tony's death at age 96 four months ago, Antonia, 49, has been relishing in time spent with the special people in her life, including her mom, actress Sandra Grant (who was married to Tony from 1971 to 1983), her sister Joanna Bennett and her 7-year-old daughter, Maya, with her husband Ronen Helmann.

"I'll be here in Los Angeles for the holidays," Antonia says. "My sister and my mom are coming out, so we're going to have a nice, small, family dinner here."

Related: Tony Bennett, Legendary Pop and Jazz Singer, Dead at 96

The youngest of Tony's four kids, Antonia says she and her dad spent many Thanksgivings over the years at the N.Y.C. institution that is the Gotham Bar and Grill.

"We had some really fun Thanksgiving meals there," she says. "At times we would go over to my brother Daegal's house and he and his girlfriend Robin would put on an amazing Thanksgiving dinner. There's a lot of memories like that. The holidays are so beautiful in the city."

As for Christmas, it was often spent hopping between the homes of Ella Fitzgerald and artist David Hockney with her dad.

"I have amazing memories of Dad and Ella sitting around talking about music and then going over to David Hockney's house and basically getting a complete art history lesson," Antonia says. "Not only is he an incredible talent, but he just has an amazing knowledge of art history as well. And so it was like the best lessons. It was a special time."

Antonia adds she and her dad would also go ice skating in Central Park every year during the holiday season, for as long as "he was still able to do it."

Related: Lady Gaga Pays Tribute to Tony Bennett on What Would Have Been His 97th Birthday: 'A Day for Smiling'

After Thanksgiving this year, Antonia will head to N.Y.C. to make her solo debut on Nov. 30 at Dizzy's Club at Jazz at Lincoln Center, a venue Tony had once called the "best jazz room in the city."

"That's my dad's old neighborhood — he lived right down the street," Antonia says. "So I am sure I'll be thinking of him a lot. My childhood was spent so close to Central Park, so I'll probably be thinking a lot about that too. There was a horseback riding studio there where you could take horses out into Central Park, and it's no longer there, but I have a lot of early childhood memories of that. I really miss New York, even though I get to be there pretty often. There's nothing like it."

For the gig, Antonia will be accompanied by The Todd Hunter Trio, which includes renowned jazz pianist Todd Hunter, Grammy-nominated drummer Chris Wabich and bassist Ian Martin. During the two sets at 7:30 p.m. and 9:30 p.m., Antonia plans to perform a mix of timeless classics from the Great American Songbook and her own original songs, including her new single, "Right on Time."

"This is really what I love to do, and I feel that it's a gift, and every opportunity to do it is just a celebration of life for me and a celebration of my dad," she says. "I know it's what he would want me to be doing, so I have comfort in that."

For as long as she can remember, Antonia says music has been a part of her every day life.

"It's just something I've always done," she says. "My dad would bring me on stage even when I was very, very young, so I never thought of it like, 'Oh, this is a job.' I just did it. I was lucky enough to be surrounded by some great inspiration early on, and not just my dad, but also the musicians that he surrounded himself with, like Count Basie and Rosemary Clooney."

Related: Inside Tony Bennett's Civil Rights Work, Marching with Martin Luther King Jr. and Liberating Nazi Camp

Through the years, Antonia has opened for her dad and performed duets with him at iconic venues like Radio City Music Hall in N.Y.C., the Hollywood Bowl in L.A. and the Royal Albert Hall in London.

"Each one of those places has their own special thing," she says. "Each one is magical. There's also this theater in San Antonio, Texas, that I really like called The Majestic. I just think it's a beautiful little theater. It kind of looks like some of those Simply Red [music] videos."

As a young adult, Antonia studied at the Berklee College of Music in Boston. She went on to record a cover of "I've Got My Love to Keep My Warm" with her dad for his A Swingin' Christmas album in 2008.

"It's the only duet we ever recorded together, even though we used to perform others," she says. "It was such a special session because we did it with the Count Basie Band, and a lot of those guys in the band at that time were the original guys that were playing with Basie, and they've known me since I was an infant, basically, and have watched me grow up. It was like a coming home in a lot of ways. To have done that with family, it was just very special."

Along with prepping for the Dizzy's gig, Antonia has been hard at work recording her new studio album, which a date has not yet been set for. She previously released her debut EP Natural in 2010 and her album Embrace Me (featuring covers of standards from the Great American Songboo) in 2012.

This new project, she says, will reflect this "different point in my life."

"I'm a mom now, and I feel like I have a lot more experience as a musician and a singer, and I'm much more sure of myself," she says. "I think that will really translate in this, because life moves on and we all become more experienced. And I think that's one of the best things about getting a little bit older is that you just get more comfortable with yourself."

Related: Tony Bennett's 4 Children: Everything to Know

With its happy go lucky vibe, "Right on Time" is a good teaser of what's to come on the rest of the album, which Antonia hopes will "uplift people."

"There's a wonderful co-writer that I worked with on ['Right on Time'], Cliff Goldmacher, and he and I have been collaborating for years together," Antonia says. "It's one of the older songs that we wrote. When we started doing this record, I thought it would be a nice fit for this project. It came about in the living room of my apartment here in Los Angeles. We just sat down and started playing with ideas, and I think we started talking about how life can throw you unexpected things, but it's never too late to fall in love again and you never know when it's going to hit you and life changes, but sometimes it's for the better."

While her daughter often is at school when she's in the studio, Antonia tries to bring her around music as much as possible, just like her dad did with her.

"She comes to my gigs, and she'll come and sit with me or sing a song with me," she says. "She has a lot of memories of coming out on the road with me when she was little with my dad, and so she loves that I'm still doing it. She asks a lot of questions, and she asks a lot of questions about her grandfather. She's so curious."

After Tony's death, Antonia broached the topic of grief with her daughter through writing.

"I think it's so important to have open dialogue with your kids and that you let them express themselves and their feelings," she says. "One thing that we did together is we wrote a letter. I helped her write a letter to him. That was the way that I approached it with her to process it. But it's a tricky thing. I don't know what the best way is. That was just the way that I could think of to handle it."

Related: How Tony Bennett Lived and Sang for Years with Alzheimer's: 'Singing Is Everything to Him'

Though Tony was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease in 2016, Antonia says "we were very lucky with him in the sense that he never got really mean" in his later years.

"He was very amenable," she says. "Sometimes people with Alzheimer's, things can get really difficult. But he was always a very go with the flow kind of guy so that part of his personality really took over. I would say the main difference is that he just got quieter as far as speech, but there was always a good connection. He was always happy to see me. There was always a twinkle in his eye. I never felt like he didn't know who I was. I didn't have any of that kind of stuff happen. It's just that he became noticeably more quiet."

Even after his diagnosis, Tony continued performing until his retirement in 2021, when he took a final bow with his friend and collaborator Lady Gaga at Radio City Music Hall.

"The long goodbye thing is a little bit tricky, but he was able to perform night after night, and he gave so much to do that," Antonia says. "And he would just come alive night after night. That was just so amazing to watch, to be able to see him get up and do that and remember all those words. They say that music is the last thing to go. I think it really just kept him going. I think that's why he was able to live as long as he did, because he had that."

While many know Tony the icon, Antonia describes Tony the dad as simply "great."

"We really liked each other, so we spent a lot of time together," she says. "We listened to a lot of music together. We were also friends. He gave me a lot of great advice, and he would have records for me to listen to things that he thought I would like. We would go to museums together pretty much in every city that we went to. I was very blessed to have that kind of relationship with him, especially in my young adult life. To be able to spend that time as a grownup with him was such a blessing."

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