It's been quite a thrilling first week for my new album Tapeo! Since the virtual concert celebration last Sunday, I've been enjoying mailing out CDs and watching the online streaming numbers roll in. I continue to be amazed by the reach music streaming can provide, especially for a new artist like myself. Thanks to some lucky playlist placement, tracks from Tapeo have been played thousands of times on Apple Music, and a track featured on the New Classical release playlist on Spotify has topped 21 000 listens in just one week! That Tapeo has been resonating with so many people has been extremely gratifying.

CD number 3.

There's a part of me that still can't believe it, even when I line all three of them up beside each other. I actually sort of find myself wondering how it happened that I've already recorded three albums at only 25 years old. It sort of feels like I'm too young for that kind of achievement.

Tapeo came out yesterday, and this past week has felt tantalizingly like a return to "normal" life between all the CD promotion and working on another project which involved writing program notes, rehearsals, and a day trip recording.

In last week's post, I wrote about how the Spanish cello on loan to me right now was in many ways at the origin of my inspiration for TAPEO. However, it wasn’t exactly smooth sailing from initial inspiration to final product. It took me a year and a half after receiving the Guillami cello to come up with the idea for this album. Honestly, if it weren't for the pandemic it probably would've been even longer (and maybe never). At end of February 2020 I was planning a completely different CD; by the end of April, TAPEO was born, complete with title and most of the final program. In anticipation of the album's launch on Friday, I want to take the time this week to share a bit of the journey to TAPEO.

Even though it might still be some time before the world gets back to normal, I can't help but feel optimistic at the beginning of this new year. TAPEO, my new tapas-inspired CD of Spanish and Hispanic music with pianist Philip Chiu, is due out on January 22, just under 2 weeks away! To celebrate, all month long I'll be sharing some of the stories behind the album.

Recently, I've been thinking a lot about where ideas come from, what causes the spark that leads you on a path towards creation. In the case of TAPEO, the answer has always been incredibly clear. The album is inextricably linked to the instrument that I recorded it on — the ca. 1769 Spanish cello attributed to Joannes Guillami of Barcelona, nicknamed "El Tiburón" (The Shark).

Last week I got an email from my alma mater, the Paris Conservatoire, letting me know that a project I had been a part in my student days had finally achieved completion. It was a project that I had rarely thought about since leaving school, and so I got to enjoy that feeling of delight when you get completely unexpected good news. So today, in the holiday spirit, I want to share the story of this recent and unexpected celebration.

In Paris, there is a museum near Montparnasse which houses the works of the sculptor Antoine Bourdelle in his former workshop. Bourdelle had an obsession with Beethoven, and produced a number of busts of him. In the museum, they're mostly all arranged in a single hallway. I have a vivid memory of how the composer’s face becomes more and more disfigured, tortured, and unrecognizable. As if Bourdelle was trying to see past Beethoven’s external features and into his soul.

I live in a part of Montreal affectionately known as “La Petite Italie”. As the name suggests, it's home to bunch of delightful little Italian restaurants, shops, and cafés; but just off the main boulevard is a much less expected resident: the Montreal Institute for Learning Algorithms, also known as MILA.

I recently had the chance to meet and talk with someone from MILA about the research being done to apply Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence to music. Although the practical results of this research might still feel far off, if you want to experience the intersection of music and AI today, you don’t need look much further than Spotify's personalized recommendations, a playlist curated to your musical tastes thanks to wonders of machine learning.

Few things have made me happier this year than seeing no less than three of my friends release their very first solo albums. Each of them had their own unique story, and I felt privileged to have followed each of their developments from idea to reality. Today, I want to introduce you to the people who have accomplished the enormous, daunting, and triumphant task of putting themselves and their music into the world.

I first received the seven volumes of Marcel Proust’s À la Recherche du temps perdu (In Search of Lost Time) for Christmas nearly 9 years ago. Younger me was fascinated by this gargantuan novel, and the idea of reading it felt like the literary equivalent of climbing Mount Everest. When I started, it was certainly with a level of curiosity for what Proust had spent so much time putting to paper, but mostly I was thinking about what an amazing accomplishment it would be to get to the end.

Spending six years in Paris taught me the value of living in a place where people enjoy life, culture, and good food and drink. In my final year, I was already traveling a lot for concerts, and there was really nothing better than coming back home to drop off my things in my tiny apartment, only to then head out and roam the beautiful Parisian streets, see some friends, and eat a delicious meal.

In June 2018, my time in Paris came to end, and I returned to Canada with the intention of settling in Montreal…

Recording has been on my mind a lot lately. This past weekend marked 3 years since I finished recording my debut album, and somewhat fittingly, I’m now in the final stages of editing for my third album, due out in January. As I spend hours listening back to my playing, fussing over details and searching for the take that will somehow magically make my performance come together (spoiler alert: it usually doesn’t exist), I’m reminded of what a surreal experience it is to make an album.

It’s been an interesting time to be a musician.

As I watch the leaves outside change into their beautiful hues of yellow, orange, and red, I can’t help but think of everything that has changed in my own life. I’ve often found Fall to be a time of reflection, and normally I would find strange delight in the contrast between the promise and potential of a new concert season and the departure of the warm summer days.