Piano, keyboards, synth, trumpet, bass
Music is humankind's greatest invention, or so a clever music teacher once told me :) I'm originally from Seattle and moved to Durango, CO in 2023. I spent a lot of my 20s traveling and have lived in Chile and Spain. My musical experiences, influences and inspirations are many!
My mom will happily tell the story of me creating my own rough musical notation system at 5 years old and knowing they had to get me into piano lessons. In middle school I started playing pop and rock songs, like the Red Hot Chili Peppers, and inherited my dad's love for Beatles tunes. I also began to compose and play bass. Roosevelt Jazz Band in Seattle was a whole new world for me. It demanded precision, dedication and hours of practice time, and gave me a strong foundation in jazz piano and theory that I continue to bring to my music.
In college I experimented with free jazz and improvisation (check out John Zorn's Cobra) under Cuong Vu and joined a 8-member hip-hop band, Dyno Jamz. I loved the fusion of styles we were able to create, with a talented, poetic rapper and a 4-piece horn section. The need for nuanced compositions for this group kick-started my interest and skills in arranging.
In 2011 I moved to a small town in Chile called La Union to teach English. While I could hardly hold a conversation or really understand anything when I arrived, I was able to play and connect with musicians almost immediately. Music is truly an international language! I joined a 10-member cumbia band and played for raucous dance parties all over el Sur de Chile. And after a year in the country, I was fully fluent in the famously inscrutable Chilean Spanish. The following year, after moving back to Seattle, I went back to Latin America to travel more extensively and start the Language of Music Project, recording, interviewing, and translating musicians in a number of different countries I visited. In 2014 I decided to teach abroad again and spent 2 years in Cordoba and Sevilla Spain, continuing to improve my Spanish and playing lots of music. I hung out with flamenco dancers and guitarists, started a jazzy busking duo with singer Cherie, and recorded a short album with my jazz trio there.
My late 20s and 30s saw me settle down in Seattle. I completed my Masters in Teaching and took a job as a Spanish teacher at the Northwest School, where I was for 6 years. I also taught music for 1 year in Seattle Public Schools. I played often with the Cumbieros (A Seattle-based cumbia band I happened to meet), started an accapella group with some friends, and played in a number of smaller projects and jam sessions. Some life changes and restlessness led me to make the leap to move to Durango in 2023 to play with Desert Child, a band founded by my friend Ari from Seattle, and start living for the first time as a fully professional musician. I'm taking lessons and improving quickly on trumpet, and honing my skills as a more versatile keyboard player, especially on synth and organ.
Sometimes it's overwhelming all the things you can do with sound! From Ray Charles to Keith Jarrett, Celia Cruz to Bobby McFerrin, the Rascals to Anderson Park, there's a lot of different music I find exciting and that I try to incorporate into my writing and teaching. And music is truly about connecting with other people. I absolutely love the experience of playing or jamming with people when we are all really listening and reacting to each other and the music. Looking forward to jamming, or chatting, or listening with you too!