Leah and I will be off to Turkey in less than 2 weeks for the first part of our documentary tour! We’ll be spending three weeks in Bodrum, Ankara, Sivas, and Trabzon exploring the culture and landscapes of the four cities portrayed in Fazil Say’s sonata for cello and piano. Our recording and mini tour (Montreal/Toronto) is scheduled for mid September and we’re aiming to release the album and documentary music videos by holidays of 2024! Featuring the world premiere of a deeply personal work written for us by Alice Ho, “Four Impressions of China”.

Recipe cards. Tree. Music.

Mementos, proof of the magic that we were a part of. That Wednesday night. The stories and energies exchanged there that reaches back so much longer, deeper than we can recall.

We both cried. Crying a lot doesn’t take away from the intensity of crying again, each time we are blessed and burdened by feeling this world, this music. I was fine for most of the time leading up to the concert, but that morning, while listening to the melodies of Wong’s “A Dream of the Motherland”, this wave of tenderness, of bitter painful emotion mixed with fire and ice and injustice and futile loving hopefulness - it all hit me. I knew what I wanted to say. Just another simple story, as always, the same simple story, that still needs to be told, vocalized, remembered, honoured, however briefly.

May 29 - June 24 Lunenburg, Nova Scotia

• 6/2 - 6/3
  Adjudicating the Nova Scotia Provincial Music Festival

• 6/7 @ 7:00 PM
  Lamp’s “A Little Light Music”
  Featuring the Verona Quartet, Tong Wang and Maitreyi Muralidharan

• 6/11 @ 2:30 PM
  Schumann Quintet with the Verona Quartet

• 6/14 @ 7:00 PM
  NOW Festival: Tong Wang & Maitreyi Muralidharan “Save Our Old Forests”

  Duo Perdendosi presents a new special program exploring today’s highly prevalent issues: nature, destruction, and hope.

• 6/23 - 6/24
  NOW Festival World Premiers

July 13 - 26 Bodrum, Ankara, Sivas, Trabzon, Turkey

Duo Incarnadine “Four Cities” documentary filming part 1: Turkey. Sandwiched between visits to Switzerland and Greece.

August 13 - 27 Airdrie, Alberta “Windwood Music Festival”“A Fair To Remember”

7 cities, 8 concerts. Too many stories to count.

We’ve collected even more hearts, even more memories, mantras, silly inside jokes and chants and phrases ingrained in our collective spirit, the tiny gestures, habits, quirks, flaws that make us all the more mysteriously, freshly, curiously in love. Endlessly proud. Endless humbled.

It’s quite simple, really.

Experiencing this music is about exploring what home means for each of us individually, and allowing ourselves to be moved collectively by that feeling. By the nostalgia, the joy and the pain, love and grief, happiness and sadness. Everything. Allowing us to notice and remember again what we miss, where we want to be, how beautiful that all is. Even if we don’t find the answers, even if we cannot return to that place, or if home was never a safe place to begin with … we can still all bond over this deep longing for home. That in itself is more than plenty.

Oh Canada… It’s time.

Time to say hello, again. Hello, Airdrie, hello Rocky Mountains and prairies and wind and snow and trees and mom’s delicious feasts. Hello, home.

And also? Who better to come home with than my kindred spirit and ultimate partner in wild magicking, in music, in making dreams a reality, in the endless bewilderment of life. Duo Perdendosi, Maitreyi and I, will be embarking on a wondrous adventure the next half year.

Wrapping up a month of touring around Europe!

4 cities, 7 concerts. A kaleidoscope of different musical experiences, people experiences, challenges, risks, courage, resilience, joy, fire, light, warmth, magic, growth. Repeating the trust in what we love, what we do, what we chose to continue doing again and again, with infinite wonder and gratitude.

The smallest ripples matter. It’s all about opening hearts and listening. But what kind of listening? What is the art of listening? It’s profoundly complex. Increasingly difficult in our world to practice kind, humble, loving listening free from biases and prejudices. But that is a worthwhile challenge to face.

I’m thrilled to share some announcements about the coming year! I’ll be writing about each individual project soon in more detail, but here’s an overview:

1. Second Album: “我们Us (Live)”

2. Duo Incarnadine: “Four Cities x2”

3. Duo Perdendosi: “Homecoming”

4. Windwood Music Festival: Season One

Once again, LAMP has nurtured our hearts. The warmth, the sincerity and generosity, the laughter and joy and cozy dinner parties alongside peaceful walks in solitude and late night practicing in the “Old Castle”. I was asked by a dear host why I keep returning to LAMP. Well, there’s the indisputable level of musicianship here that continues to inspire and drive me to perform at my best, but so much more than that are the relationships. The details in the intimate, personal, real experience we have here as people, friends, family. Community. I love community. I love.

I’ve written enough cheesy declamations of my love and gratitude. I’ll let these notes speak for themselves. I only got to open them a few days ago, and they gave me such hope. I couldn’t stop smiling. Particularly at a time when I felt burnt out, discouraged, a little … blank - these words reminded me, that we were all together, that we were present, we created the emoting that is so wondrous and touching.

So, thank you all.

And that’s a wrap!

What another whirlwind of a summer it has been. Each of these places have taught me invaluable lessons - they’ve enlightened such contrasting musical, professional, personal experiences.

I’m grateful for the ways they’ve expanded and enriched my perspective and self-awareness. More and more, even after I am challenged, exhausted, and often disillusioned with the work and dreams I pursue, I still manage to become more assured of just who I want to be, what I want to do - as a friend, a member of diverse communities, an artist of many hats, and sometimes (when not a magical music fairy), just a derpy, down-to-earth human being.

So excited to announce some news for the rest of 2022!

1. Opera McGill: OMG Beta Lab (Montreal, Canada)

2. Lunenburg Academy of Music (LAMP): NOW Festival (Lunenburg, Canada)

3. Verbier Festival: Summer Academy (Verbier, Switzerland)

4. La Napoule Art Foundation: Canadian Artist Residency (Mandelieu-la-Napoule, France)