Projects

Almost all of my recital programs are driven by a specific project idea. A relationship with a composer or a collection of pieces with a unifying theme inspires a concert program or even a series of concerts. With The Preludes Project, the idea was born when I performed all of the Chopin Op. 28 Preludes in a live performance with Compagnie Marie Chouinard. Seeing a modern dance interpretation of this 19th-century masterpiece inspired me to find additional relationships across musical eras.

In performing Chopin’s Preludes, it was of vital importance to me to create a relationship between the audience and this music. I decided to connect the new with the familiar, and carefully paired the commissions with standards by composers such as Bach, Debussy, and Rachmaninoff. Additionally, in each concert, I spoke about why I connected them—I wanted not only to make the works memorable individually, but to expand the audience’s understanding of music more broadly. Over the span of three years, that single idea grew into nearly 50 performances across 17 states with 65 new preludes written by 16 composers.

After I concluded The Preludes Project, I began work on multiple projects: For Lisa (a project devoted to presenting music written by women, titled in a student’s honor who asked why she was only performing music written by men); Classical Conversations (a series of lecture-recitals bound by a common theme); and numerous ongoing collaborations with composers including Kirk O’Riordan, Anthony J. Lanman, Rasa Daukus, and Stephanie Ann Boyd (to name only a few). On the new website, you will be able to read more about these current projects and how they are inspiring my programming for the next two seasons.