Chapter 3: Massachusetts

Chosen for The Boston Globe’s
“Best of Arts 2021: The classical concerts that made me fall in love with live music again”

Read that article here, as well as their feature article on Gather Hear Massachusetts

The third tour was in my new home state of Massachusetts. I moved to Boston in 2018, but between traveling for performances and then COVID lockdown, I had yet to feel like I knew the place or people.

I planned this tour during some of the worst periods of COVID in early 2021, during that dark winter when cases soared, there was no vaccine yet, and many facts about the virus were still unknown. I predicted (prayed/hoped) that outdoor concerts would be allowable and enticing once the weather warmed up, and that a vaccine would be widely distributed by then. Both of these things came true.

As I toured throughout the month of May, the change in mood was palpable. Tentative, very small crowds gathered in eerily quiet city centers for the first concerts in chilly, early May. By the end of the month, large crowds gathered for warm, sunny, celebratory concerts, after the majority of Massachusetts residents had been vaccinated and enough data had been collected for the CDC to announce that outdoor gatherings were safe.

Because my concerts were held outside, often in very visible locations like at a public square, I got to reach new audiences even more boldly than I do in my indoor concerts. People walking home from work, eating snacks/playing basketball in a park, or driving by would look curiously at the gatherings and often join to listen - sometimes until the end of the concert. These passers-by-turned-classical-music-listeners were often a more diverse demographic than audience members who had actively chosen to attend the concert.

For most of the audience members and concert presenters, mine was their first live concert experience in 14+ months. This was also my first time performing in 14+ months, and I practiced extra hard to make up for the nerves that were sure to make their appearance for the first concerts. I was touched by the joy and appreciation that people expressed.

A highlight of the program was performing “Before I Die,” a piece I commissioned from Boston-based composer Ariel Friedman and inspired by the global public art project of the same name by artist Candy Chang. Audience members were asked to fill out cards with the prompt “Before I die, I want to…” and I recited the answers while playing Ariel’s piece. It was a moment of reflection and raw honesty from listeners, and a chance for us to process the collective trauma that we’ve all gone through during the past year of the pandemic, even only for the duration of the concert.

Also central to the program was the piano sonata by Florence Price, a Black female composer who lived 1887-1953. As the Black Lives Matter movement gained momentum during the pandemic, I reassessed the repertoire I’ve been taught to prioritize throughout my life - those of white male composers. I resolved to learn more about composers who have been pushed to the margins and to celebrate their voices; not only did I fall in love with Price’s piece, Gather Hear listeners were delighted to hear her music.

Some of my favorite moments…
~ collaborating with and getting to know Juli, the owner of Orange Peel Bakery on Martha’s Vineyard and a Wampanoag tribe member ~ the incredibly warm welcome I received at Point After Club, a mental health support group in Lawrence ~ seagulls squawking along to the music in New Bedford ~ all the kind people who helped me figure out how to use the PA system ~ getting pooped on by a bird mid-concert ~ the last notes of Liszt Sonata and the profound silence that always followed, concluding each concert ~ seeing, playing for, and hugging friends whom I so dearly missed through lockdown ~