When I first came to Lawrence, I was so excited to be attending a Conservatory. Coming from a small town that didn’t have that many musical opportunities, I was thrilled to immerse myself in a classical music community. My dream was to be a pianist, and in my mind that career felt very clearly and…
An advocation for exploration: Technique beyond
What is good technique? When I first started piano, I wasn’t even sure what technique was. I was eight years old and I was taught not to collapse my wrists or the arch of my palm and that finger strength was everything. I played my obligatory scales, arpeggios and Hanon exercises in blissful unawareness of…
Taking risks and learning to sing
I’ve always wanted to sing, but I’ve also always been scared to. I will never forget the day my high school choir director pulled me aside after rehearsal to tell me to sing quietly because my voice was too loud and too out of tune. While these two things were objectively true, hearing them as…
Lessons learned from free improv
The other day I was at the Viking Room with junior Liam Fisher talking about free improvisation. The two of us started playing together several months ago, and our musical backgrounds couldn’t be more different. Fisher’s experience comes from playing in jazz and funk bands. My training has been primarily classical. Somehow, our improvisations have…
Artist Spotlight: Evangeline Werger
Photo by Taylor Blackson During her freshman year, senior Evangeline Werger saw Chicago-based sextet Eighth Blackbird perform a concert that changed her life. “That was the moment I just knew,” Werger said, “that was exactly what I had to be doing. […] This was also the first time I looked on stage and saw people…
A celebration of the melodica
Have you ever wanted to play an amplified trumpet keyboard? In the summer of 2017, I unwrapped my beloved pink melodica that I had impulsively ordered three days earlier from Amazon Prime. What commenced was a beautiful two years of fun, including performances on my best friend senior Xiaoya Gao’s piano recital, gigs with the…
Reflections on one year of improvisation
Risk. As an improviser, I feel as though I’m constantly living in a land of risk. There’s a feeling of never quite knowing where my hand might fall, what direction my collaborators might turn or what I might suddenly hear. It’s scary but exhilarating to explore this world of options where your success is dependent…
Breathe: Beyond Spectacle A Powerful Meditation
“Someone plays cello underwater?” “A diver?” “Melodica in a kayak?” “How is this possible?” I fielded many of these incredulous questions as I tried to explain “Breathe” to my shocked friends and family who couldn’t believe such a production was possible. To be honest, I could barely believe it myself. I first heard of “Breathe”…