Yesterday I had a photo shoot at the National Gallery of Art in DC for the upcoming interview/story with ReadysetDC. We went to two locations, first was the “La Negresse” enormous cut-out by Henri Matisse. The other was this courtyard, which had AMAZING acoustics. I had to do it, I had to play Unabi… Allyson [...]

I was seduced today, three times. First, by this quote by Caroline Casey: “May the entire world fall in love with a woman that changes their heart and may that woman be the Earth.” :: Then, by this gem by Julie Daley. “A new female human being is being born anew. She is coming into [...]

I recently read an except from the book A Chromatic Approach to Jazz Harmony and Melody by David Liebman, and wanted to share this with you: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ “Like all forms of communication, music consists of the interplay of patterns and violations of the pattern. Without order, sound is noise. But perfect order conveys no message, [...]

It has been 5 weeks since my last blog about the Amazon rainforest and indigenous Achuar villages. I thought that I would have written more, posted more… but the muses have their own way of doing things. I’ve been writing music this entire time, and in the last 5 weeks have written 8 songs. A [...]

Photos by Cassidy Rast, Sushila Mertens, Kathleen McIntire, Whitney Kear When I went to the depths of the Amazon rainforest to spend time with the Achuar tribe, I did not bring my viola. I brought my harmonica, which until this trip was an instrument I’ve had for years, but have not properly explored in any [...]