For Lisa

In her piano lesson, one of my talented 13-year old students asked me why she was only studying music by men. Her age, gender and cultural background (she recently moved to the United States from China) made her question a serious wake-up call. Her more unsettling follow-up “I could never compose (because I’m a girl)” made me realize as a teacher, as a performer, and as a possible role model, my programming choices needed to address these issues of bias with a more focused and communicative approach.

This cognizance led to a new project "For Lisa" which is devoted to presenting music written by women. Like all of the new music I perform frequently, I prefer to program music by composers with whom I have a personal relationship. I have met numerous empowering, intelligent, passionate, and genuine women over the years. I enjoy sharing their music with others, but I am also sharing their stories. By being true to my journey of music making, I can honestly encourage (and hopefully inspire) my students to find their individual voices. Most importantly, I hope to inspire Lisa and other students like her, and to encourage young female students to walk fearlessly down the road of self-expression and creativity.

While I am including music by women I have not met (Clara Schumann, for example), knowledge of all of these composers appeared in pivotal moments of my professional and personal life.

An article describing the beginnings of this project can be found here.