The cynical part of me feels like this doesn’t make sense. To ask artists already losing work to keep supporting the arts. The critical part of me understands that donations, and even grants, is not a long-term, self-sustainable model. That’s why I want to keep learning, finding new ways and systems of creating opportunities for fellow artists.

It's been a most beautiful, thoughtful 6 months. Touching memories and growth, adventures kept to myself and those closest around me, filling me everyday, warmly, with gratitude.

The first day I arrived back at Orford, I was practicing the second movement of this sonata late in the evening, exhausted by all the challenges that have been overwhelming me these past few weeks, and suddenly I began to feel myself tearing up ... which happens often when I’m working on in incredible music like this. But this time, as I went on repeating that section where the main theme returns, I just allowed the raw emotions to take over, and soon I was crying uncontrollably. It felt almost indulgent, to just let myself weep like that as I kept playing. At a certain point, my fingers came to a standstill, but I still couldn’t stop the tears, so I just sat there in the silence, sobbing until I drained out all those emotions.