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Super excited to announce that I’ve been selected as one of the composers for the Toulmin Fellows and Creators. Read on for more info on this exciting opportunity. Thank you to my family at National Sawdust!

The Center for Ballet and the Arts & National Sawdust Partnership is a one-year collaboration that supports 45 appointed female, trans, and nonbinary composers and choreographers, with the aim of creating new works in the virtual medium.

The program aims to help these individuals develop their skills, create and present new work, and build a community of like-minded artists that will meaningfully advance their careers. The program will support five “Toulmin Fellows” and forty “Toulmin Creators.” Each will receive a package of financial, intellectual, and creative resources to support development of new work.

Both Fellows and Creators will be provided with professional development in the form of 20 master classes and seminars on such topics as intellectual property, improvisation, and arts criticism. They will also receive access to National Sawdust’s (NS) Digital Knowledge Hub, which will share and document NS’ extensive mentorship program to accompany its digital stage.

The Toulmin Fellows will spend the winter in residence at CBA and the spring at NS, building toward participation in NS’ Digital Discovery Festival (DDF). They will also receive mentorship from established arts practitioners and scholars who offer deep knowledge and experience in their mediums. They will provide Fellows with personalized feedback, career support, and connections to their robust professional networks.

The forty Toulmin Creators will participate in DDF and/or in seminars offered to CBA’s community of artists and scholars.

Thank you to the Virginia B. Toulmin Foundation for making this partnership possible.

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The award-winning, multimedia hub “I Care If You Listen” has written a wonderful review of Ensemble Pi’s “Reparations Now” concert, where my pierrot ensemble piece “The Pattern,” premiered. Of my piece Jillian Degroot wrote:

“Much like the effect of this startling truth, the small ensemble immediately erupted into cacophony. The violin (Airi Yoshioka) and cello (Alexis Gerlach), followed closely by the flute (Loggins-Hull) and clarinet (Moran Katz), settled into anxious tremolos. Tones bled downward in pitch bends as conductor Raquel Klein sensitively cued soloistic laments from players throughout the ensemble. Moments of hope blossomed before returning once more to chaos—a potent metaphor for the systemic white supremacy enacted on Black Americans since 1619.“

Read the entire review here.

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I recently reunited with an old friend and how sweet it was. Meena Bhasin, violist and co-artistic director of San Francisco’s Noe Music, and I were in a trio back in 2001! We were young students in the Chamber Music Program of New York Youth Symphony and performed Debussy’s Sonata for flute, viola, and harp (with harpist Irantzu Aguirre!), at Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall. Oh, the memories!! She and her husband Owen Dalby, invited me to be a guest on Noe Music’s “The Listening Club,” an online series featuring performers, a curated playlist, and insightful conversation. In the beginning of our conversation, we reflected on the close-knit community of classical musicians, and our unique experience of “growing-up” together through our training. We highlighted various projects I’ve been a part of that focus on the human story and experience, including Flutronix’s latest work Discourse, Nathalie Joachim’s Fanm d’Ayiti, Amanda Gookin’s Forward Music Project, and my latest commission for Ensemble Pi. It was a true joy to spend an hour with Meena and Owen, and I’m excited to share our conversation with you all. Take a listen.