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So today is June 16, 2021. My name is Josh Kim—I'm an intern at the Houston Asian American Archive. And I'll be talking with Chelsea de Souza, who is a pianist currently pursuing her doctorate at Rice University's

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Shepherd School of Music. I'm going to ask you questions in a roughly chronological order, but we'll just follow the conversation wherever it- wherever it goes. So the first thing I want to ask is where and when you were born?

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I was born in Mumbai, in India in 1993, in October. Nice! Yeah, so what was it like growing up there? Well, it was—I mean, school in India

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is really a big focus. So, I think similar to most Asian communities, you know, like parents really value education. And so, it was the same in my family.

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You know, my parents were very particular about academics and making sure that we studied, but also my mom had a really big focus on extracurriculars.

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So, I remember being five years old and going to gymnastics classes and doing ballet for a little bit, learning how to swim… we did like elocution and drama, and painting—so like, every single thing because

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she- she believed that it was really important to figure out what a child has a natural affinity for. And so, both my parents played the piano, and we had a piano at home, and that's kind of how, you know, I

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ended up starting piano lessons when I was four or five years old. And that was one of the things I did take to immediately. And so once I started winning competitions very quickly, it became a sort of dual focus for

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me. So that was piano and that was my school. Yeah, gotcha. Um, can you tell me a little bit more about your parents, I guess? Like, wha- you know, what

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was your home environment like? And you know, do you have any early memories, fond or otherwise, that you want to share? Sure!

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So my dad worked—he was the chief engineer on a cargo ship. So he would be gone for four months out at sea, and then he would be home for four months.

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And you know, this stayed this—he retired when I was in 11th grade. So that was most of my time at home before I came to the US for undergrad. was that with my dad.

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And my mom used to run her parents secretarial school for the years before I was born, and then she quit a year after my younger sister was born. So, she was a stay-at-home mom and kind of ran the household, and took

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care of me and my sister and all of our extracurriculars, and took care of her parents, especially while my dad was away at sea. And… I don't know, they were—they both loved music a lot, and I remember my dad used to put

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me on his lap when I was like four years old, and make me play, you know, a few notes on the piano. I just wanted to sort of bang around and make a lot of noise, and he would try to make me do, like, 1-2-3-4-5.

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And that—and they just played a lot of music at home. My dad sings and plays the guitar as well, so we grew up listening to a lot of

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music. And actually, one of my strongest memories of the music we listened to was eating breakfast before we went to school. And my dad had these CDs of Chopin, like Chopin's complete works. And so just every morning,

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I remember we would eat oats before going to school, and I-I associate oats now so strongly with listening to Chopin Nocturnes. So whenever I hear Chopin Preludes and Nocturnes and Waltzes, it just

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immediately brings me back to sitting at our dining table at home, about to go to school. Yeah, that's—yea that’s like so— your parents, I guess like, are the people who sort of inundated you

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initially with classical music then? Yes, definitely! Yeah, yeah. Okay, that's cool! Um, so you have just one sibling? Yes, one younger sister—she's also a pianist and a singer

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. So yeah, what was—what was your relationship with her like? You know, especially since you guys do similar things professionally.

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How's your sort of relationship stuck or changed over the years? So my younger sister, she is a year and a half younger. So we are very close in age, and from, I think, the moment she was born, just from stories my parents have told me—and

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this is something that's remained in our relationship since then—I've always like taken care of her. Ever since, you know, we went to school together; we were in the same school 'til I-’til I finished 10th grade.

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So we were—we weren't very close when we were both living at home, just because we were so busy. But she always wanted to do whatever I did.

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So, you know, she saw me take piano lessons, and so she started taking piano lessons. And so we actually—from a pretty young age, we were competing against each other in a lot of piano competitions that had us in the same age groups for a few

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years. And it's been the same since. I mean, a lot of the All-India piano competitions I did, like my sister would be the one to come second, you know? Or win it the year a couple years after I won.

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So that was—it's been—it was really nice, but also interesting in some ways. Because I think she often felt like she had to contend with who I was, because most people, especially our

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teachers in school, knew me first. And then two years later, she would come along. And I think it was natural for people to draw comparisons, even though we are very different people.

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But then we went to undergrad, both of us at Oberlin; she came two years after me, and we became a lot closer there. I think it removed us from our childhood environment, and we kind of were growing as people on our own terms.

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And that gave us a chance to become friends, which we weren't really before—you know, we were just sisters. And so now we're pretty close, and we talk about a lot of stuff. Um, we-

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we play a lot of four-hands piano stuff together. And it is definitely nice having someone in the same business who I can trust like wholeheartedly, despite us doing the same thing. That's really

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nice. So how did your parents go about like shaping or like directing your like musical education, I guess? I mean, I'm guessing that they found a teacher for you

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and everything so like—and you also said that they, like a lot of Indian parents, emphasized academics growing up and everything like that. So like how did they sort of—I guess what I'm asking is,

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what did- what did they do for you, but also, how did they frame your musical education growing up? Right. So I started piano lessons I think just before I turned five, and it was with a local teacher who lived a

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couple of streets down from us. And I think—my mom tells me that I started just a few months before the summer break, and then you kn- we were off for the summer. And so my mom taught me during the summer.

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Just you know, we continued with the same book that I was already learning from, but since I was out of school and we just had all this time, she says that I picked things up really quickly, and- and sort of really took off.

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And from then on, I think she saw that I had both an interest and an affinity for playing the piano. And so she would sit with me for at least part of my practice session, since she was also a pianist.

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I mean, not professional, but she studied piano for many years. So she would sort of sit with me and make sure that I did what the teacher had asked me to do, and would even push me to go even further—like, learn more songs in the book,

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or practice scales and like technical exercises, which I think was extremely important to my very quick growth as a pianist. Because other kids around me who were taking piano lessons didn't have someone at home to

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get them to do their Hanon and Czerny and all of that. And so my technical skills grew very, very quickly, which was a huge asset at the time. And she-

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she—for her, I think academics was always first. And then I remember around—there was certain times of year where we had piano—like, local piano competitions. So my church would have a talent contest every year

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in August, and there would be like age groups. So there would be below 8, and 8 to 12, and 12 to 16, and each age group had a singing competition, both classical and non-classical. And then they had an instrumental competition,

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there was both classical and non-classical. So I would participate in all four of those categories, and do a separate song or piece for that. And so every time we got close to August, it would be like a "Let's focus

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on piano" time of year. And then, you know, when it got close to school exams, at the end of semesters, it would be like a "Let's focus on school" kind of thing.

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So I- she wasn't the kind—I don't remember, at least, having to practice piano every single day, but maybe I just blocked it out of my memory, I don't know! . Um… but you know, she

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was very, very strict about making sure we did what we had to do. And I was a much more obedient child than my sister. My sister definitely rebelled against this sort of very regimented schedule we had, and I think

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my mom really struggled with that. And so it was just easier to get me to do whatever I needed to do. And… yeah, I guess that's kind of how it was structured. And we- we also did a lot of other extracurriculars.

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I remember taking part in all of the sports competitions at school as well—like, I used to do track. And then I also did a lot of drama classes. Our school had—we had the British school system of like four houses, like in

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Harry Potter. So we would have inter-house competitions in different fields, and so I used to do all of those also. There was elocution, there was speech, drama, debates,

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and then sports, of course. So I actually participated in all of those. So it really felt—throughout the year, I always had a different thing going on. Yeah. Quite busy!

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. Um, so what traditions and values—whether religious, cultural, like any of those things—did your family have? And are there any that you still keep?

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So my family is Roman Catholic. And it's a little bit different than the Catholicism that people are familiar with in the US, which to me, now having been here for 10 years—it's a lot more rigorous

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and strict than the Catholicism that my community practiced back home. I mean, of course, there were people who were more religious. But in general, I think church was more about the

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community. And you know, the routine of you go every Sunday, and the people you meet, your neighbors. And then like the community events that would happen through the year, like this talent contest that we always participated in, and

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the choirs that would sing at church and things like that. So we were raised Catholic in that we went to church every Sunday; I did Sunday school, I received my First Holy Communion when I was in fourth grade.

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And we said—I remember when we were little kids, we would say a prayer, say the “Our Father'' or whatever every night before going to sleep as a family. But then as we grew older and just got busier,

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those sorts of daily, religious routines kind of fell away. We still did church every Sunday, but it wasn't a sort of- daily force, I think, in our lives. I would say that my family was governed more by Indian values than any

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sort of religious values. It was… you know, in India, like family is really important, like respecting your elders, respecting authority.

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And that was definitely something that my parents also tried to inculcate in us, like respecting your older relatives, when you go to a family gathering, making sure you say hello to everyone and all that kind of stuff.

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But actually, within our small unit of the four of us, my parents were very open. I was just talking with my mom the other day about how there was nothing we couldn't say to them—like if we were upset or if we were

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having a fight, we never felt like we couldn't express ourselves or had to keep quiet. Which was, I think, a good thing, given that our general schedules were so strict—it felt nice that we could at least express ourselves verbally

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to our parents. Okay, yeah! Um, so what was your grade school education like? You touched on that a little bit I think, but could you tell me more about that? Yeah!

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So, the school was—it was actually started by—and this is the school I was in from kindergarten 'til 10th grade. It was called Bombay Scottish School, and it was started, actually, by an Anglo-Scottish education

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society. It was originally when the British were there, still in India. It was an orphanage, actually—there was a boys' orphanage and a girls' orphanage, and then they were combined into a school. And so at school, it was

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actually a Christian school in that we sang Christian hymns every morning in our school assembly. But I was one of the few Christians at the school, because of course Christianity is such a minority in India as a whole.

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So—I mean, Indian schooling—it was pretty typical, I think, of most Indian schools in that there was a huge emphasis on authority. I think, for anyone who's grown up in an Asian country…

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I think back to how our teachers exerted this sort of control over us that is now unfamiliar to me in the US. There was a huge respect, but also fear, of what your teachers would do—like, complain to your parents, or give

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you bad marks in the exams. So it was very, very structured around pleasing your teachers, which I really didn't like. I used to get into a lot of trouble for

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what I think were pretty silly things. Like, I loved to read books, I was obsessed with reading. And so when we did classwork, I would always want to finish my work and then read whatever book I had.

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And for some reason, I would get into trouble for that, because the teacher would be like, "Oh, after you finish your work, put your head down and pretend to sleep." And I would read a book under the table, and then if I was caught, I would get—it

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would be confiscated. So I really didn't like the way our school system was structured. But it did teach me discipline, which I think is the goal for all of these schools.

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We had a very disciplined curriculum, we had a school uniform, and it had to be in certain condition when we showed up at school. And we would get in trouble if- you know, our uniforms weren't ironed, or if we had hair out of place, or if our socks weren't the correct

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length, and things like that. So it was very particular in that sense. And school exams were like the biggest focus for everyone at school, it was all about who was doing the best in the class, who was coming

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first, second, third. You had subject prizes, and you had your overall prize. So exams were definitely a big thing that kind of defined the school year.

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But we had a lot of, like I said before, extracurricular—or co-curricular, I guess you would call them, within the school—like, activities. Which was really good, I think, and helped me develop a lot of skills that I use today, like with public

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speaking and my leadership abilities. Because I was house captain, and so I sort of had to get people involved with activities and lead teams. And that was a really good skill to be able to build.

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Who did you hang out with as a kid? So I… when I was—before like I reached, I don't know, fourth or fifth grade, I used to play with the kids in

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my neighborhood. We had like a lot of kids on my street, and we would ride our bikes up and down, and play with a ball and go to each other's houses. And then as we grew older and we got busier with school, and we were

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all in different schools, I stopped hanging out with them. And then—at school, I was very, very shy. Like I said, I liked to read, so my favorite thing to do during the lunch break was to sit down and

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read a book. And so I didn't really want to go out and play with the other kids. And my—one thing my mom regrets now is that she didn't see the importance of cultivating friendships.

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So I didn't do much after school as well in terms of meeting friends. So I had a few friends who I would hang out with at birthday lunches and things like that, and who I would talk to at school. But I didn't cultivate close friendships until I

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got to, I would say, seventh or eighth grade, where I suddenly—I had a homeroom teacher, we called it a class teacher—who saw how shy I was and wanted to draw me out of my shell.

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And so… I- I somehow at that age realized that I wasn't very happy being that shy, because people would make assumptions about me that weren't true—that I wasn't nice, or that I was arrogant. And so I made—I actually

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made an effort to reach out to other people and be more confident, and be- like, try to make friends. And that was a huge turning point for me, because- I think I'm a completely different person now, because

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I really made an effort at that time to not be shy. So starting with seventh or eighth grade, I made a lot of closer friends, none of whom were musicians, because music wasn't really much of a thing that people did. I tended to gravitate towards-

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people who loved to read—like, I remember being friends with kids who I could, you know, share books with, and we would talk about whatever series we were reading, like Artemis Fowl. And then I would work on like our

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school newspaper with them. Uh… yeah, so I guess the nerdy people, 'cause that's who I was too. Yeah. Yeah…

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so like, what extent did you—or guess more generally, like what's the- kind of like, relationship between this—your like Roman Catholic community and Mumbai?

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And then like… you know, the rest of—the people outside that community? Like, what was your relationship with that?

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What was your community's relationship with that? Well, I would say that the community I grew up in could be very insular, actually. Because the neighborhood I grew up in- in Mumbai, which is Bandra, is actually a lot of church land.

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So there were like, maybe five different Catholic churches, all within like a mile's radius. So there were many parishes like over— you know, that sort of were clustered into this very small area.

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And so a lot of the people I grew up around, they sort of stayed within that little space: like they went to the schools in the immediate neighborhood, they married people from the immediate neighboring communities, and it was a

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very tightly knit community. But my parents chose to send me and my sister to a school that was a little further away. And because of that, we did not develop the same friendships that the kids we grew up next

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to did. So we were in some ways a little bit cut off from some of that community. And my parents didn't make a particular effort to cultivate it, beyond during the

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talent contest time, because at that point, we would all get together and we would be helping the choirs and like taking part in the dramatics section. And so that would be the one time in the year—and of course church on

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Sunday, where I would see these people who I grew—who I lived next to. But in day to day life, we were kind of cut off from them. And that's definitely something I missed. It would have been nice to have that like neighborly

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community more than just, you know, a few times a year. But I would say, you know, the Roman Catholic community is a little bit cut off from the rest of Mumbai because it's a very vibrant community in and of itself—

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and especially the Catholics in Bandra, because there are so many of us, there's not really any need to move outside. So you would- you would only really know people from work or from school, but not really have a sense

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of community with them. really interesting to hear about—hear about that enclave, I didn't know about that. Yeah, that's really cool. Um, so what cultures of

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music—I guess, in addition to the one that you were imbricated in— did you like encounter growing up in India? And I'm asking because like I guess that audiences and forms of

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engagement vary for different kinds of music there, whether it's like pop, or filmi, or Bollywood, or you know, Carnatic stuff, Hindustani stuff—or Western classical as you- as you grew up with, I'm sure those audiences and

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all of that, it's just all different. So what- what were you actually engaging with? Was it mainly just the Western classical stuff? Or did you absorb like all that other stuff

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as well? So, we studied Western classical in our piano lessons, and of course listened to a lot of it. And we would always go to concerts at the NCPA, which was the National Center for Performing Arts, which was a performing

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arts complex all the way at the other end of town. And they had a couple beautiful concert halls and they would have, you know, artists come from all over the world to give concerts there. Like, Yuja Wang came to inaugurate

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the new Steinway piano—you know, really famous people came there. And so, my parents were extremely good about making sure that they took us to as many concerts as they—as we could go to because it was so far.

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I mean, I feel like we went to a concert almost every week, whether it was a choir, or you know, a chamber ensemble or a solo pianist or singer, we were just heavily involved in that. And I would say, you know, at those concerts, the

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attendance was interesting. So, Western classical music is heavily enjoyed by two communities in India in general: the Christian community—so like, including Roman

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Catholics, like where I grew up—and the other community is the Parsis. So they're the Zoroastrian community, and they are the people who financially support the arts—Western arts—in India.

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And there's a huge Parsi community in Mumbai, and so they—these two are the ones who sort of take lessons, go to the concerts, etc. And of course there are other communities who are involved in it as well.

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But if you're Parsi or Christian, there's a very good chance you learned piano growing up, or you know, you have a piano teacher in the family, or something like that. Um, so that was the

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community engagement part of it- was mostly those two. And so my friends at school really had no idea what I did with music outside of school, because that was just not a part of the music

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they listened to. Of course, Bollywood music is a big thing all over India, and I grew up absolutely hating it. I just thought it was so… I don't know, film-y and you know, overproduced

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and just not of good quality. I definitely had a little bit of the Eurocentric, like, "Western classical music is so great, and Bollywood music is not good." And

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beyond that with the traditional Indian musics, we actually had no exposure really, to them. I think it occupies a similar place as Western classical in India, where it's just not a popular music.

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So of course, there's a very active community of Hindustani music and Carnatic music, but unless you seek it out, you're not going to come into contact with it. So, you know, the only time I would ever see or know of such

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concerts happening was when I went to the NCPA to hear a classical recital, and then I would see the posters for the-the traditional Indian concerts that would also be happening there.

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Um but we didn't listen to it. Later on, in our schooling, I think when we were in eighth or ninth grade, we met—we made a family friend who used to go to all of the concerts that we played at.

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And he was equally involved in the Western classical and the Hindustani classical side. And so he introduced us to several of his like favorite Hindustani singers and instrumentalists, and that was always really interesting to meet someone of

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such stature who we had no idea about, and to know from someone who knew about the tradition, just how great they were, and what an amazing legacy they had.

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was always interesting for us. And I feel like I've got—I've listened and learned more about traditional Indian music since I left India, because people are so interested in it in the US, and there's an

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expectation that I should know something about it. And so that's kind of forced me to want—I mean, I want to learn more about it, but that kind of sparked my interest really, once I came here. Yeah. That makes sense to me, 'cause like… you’re

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right I feel like a lot of—not just like—I mean, to a large extent, there are definitely academic people who sort of, in conservatories, and like other places like that, that, you know, study Indian classical and are interested in that stuff.

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And so I guess, environmentally, like you getting into that later, that's interesting to me, Okay… So could you tell me a little bit about your first teacher or teachers in piano, and some formative

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experiences with lessons and things like that? So my first teacher was very, very sweet, I remember. She was just so kind. And it was a great, I think, first

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introduction to the piano. But within a few years, both she and my parents felt that I needed to go to someone who was more serious. And so both me and my sister started with another

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teacher who lived close to our school, and we would go there for lessons just before school. And that was a pretty important time, because she discovered that both me and my sister had absolute pitch—we had no idea what that was

00:31:38.020 - 00:31:51.470

and we would do these exams, the Trinity College grade exams, which is a huge thing in India and Southeast Asia. It like starts at grade one, and you

00:31:51.470 - 00:32:04.850

go ‘til grade eight, and then you have these upper level diplomas. So she was preparing—I think I was doing like grade two, and my sister was doing grade one. And part of that was these ear training exams.

00:32:05.420 - 00:32:17.650

So you would have to like stand next to the piano, and then they would play an interval, and you'd have to say what it was or whatever. And so when we were doing that practice, she realized that I had perfect pitch. And then the next day,

00:32:17.650 - 00:32:32.900

when my sister went for her lesson, she was like, "Your other daughter has perfect pitch." So my parents were like, "Whoa!" And so that—she was important in that, but she—I actually had a very bad experience with her because- she, in

00:32:32.900 - 00:32:49.480

many ways, held me back, rather than trying to allow me to flourish. Like, she would restrain me and tell me to play things slow, and like not to do a lot of the things that I wanted to do, which I think—you know, when you

00:32:49.640 - 00:33:03.640

have a kid that young, you should just let them do what they're excited about. And so I very quickly switched from her. Then my sister and I went to another teacher, who was younger.

00:33:04.500 - 00:33:18.450

She was maybe like in her late 20s or early 30s. But she had been a very talented young pianist, and I really enjoyed my lessons with her because she played also a lot of other styles of music.

00:33:18.510 - 00:33:34.410

And that was something I did as well—like, my family and I, we would watch American Idol every week. And so my sister and I would sing all of the like pop songs we heard; we listened to a lot of Mariah and Whitney Houston, and so I used to play by ear

00:33:34.540 - 00:33:48.450

all of these songs and accompany my sister and other singers. And so she could do that as well, and so I really liked this teacher. But unfortunately, after I think a year or two, she ended up moving to Dubai with her husband.

00:33:48.450 - 00:34:04.070

And so we had to switch. And then she told my parents that there was only one teacher that I could possibly go to. And this teacher was a 90-year-old lady who lived at the opposite end of town, like close to the performing arts center.

00:34:04.600 - 00:34:20.770

And she had studied at the Royal College in London many, many years ago, of course. And so, my mom, every Saturday morning, would drive me—it was like an hour with no traffic,

00:34:21.420 - 00:34:36.970

or a little more. And then if there was traffic, it could even be two hours coming back from her house. But every Saturday morning, I would go there. And my mom would sit there in the lesson, and this very old lady

00:34:37.130 - 00:34:49.520

would teach me. And she—I have never had any problems with injuries in my life of piano playing, and I would say that's entirely due to her.

00:34:49.520 - 00:35:05.470

Because she was really particular about like having a relaxed posture, and all of that stuff. So in many ways, because she- she was so old, she would keep pulling me back and wouldn't really work on technique with me in terms of fast playing.

00:35:05.890 - 00:35:22.500

But since my mom kind of did that at home, it was okay. And it was a good balance between my teacher and my mom. And I actually grew—I was with this 90-year-old lady—well, she didn't stay 90 I guess, the whole time, but I was

00:35:22.500 - 00:35:39.540

with her for maybe six years. And then it got to—then, I mean, she got so old that she couldn't remember what pieces I was working on when I would go the next week, and things like that.

00:35:39.540 - 00:35:54.200

And then, in my final two years of high school, when I was getting—you know, I was doing a lot of All-India competitions, and really doing a lot with music, we unfortunately had to switch. And so I went to another teacher who lived down the street from her,

00:35:54.240 - 00:36:10.420

actually. So yeah, I guess I had a lot of teachers through my time in India. But alongside this, I- whenever any of the performing artists would come to play a concert, we would always go backstage

00:36:10.420 - 00:36:23.020

and ask them to hear me. And so that was, in a way, almost as useful if not more than the lessons I was having. Because having—I got like these

00:36:23.170 - 00:36:40.150

masterclasses, essentially, from pianists from all over the world. And having that much information thrown at you at such a young age, I think I was forced to make decisions about what I wanted to do and what I didn't want to do, and sort of integrate all of these different opinions,

00:36:40.660 - 00:36:55.070

which was a really useful skill to build at that young age. Because I think most young people are used to just having one teacher who tells them what to do and they follow it. And so having varied perspectives was quite incredible,

00:36:55.660 - 00:37:07.700

really, and if I had been anywhere else in the world, I don't think I would have gotten that opportunity. It's just that for these artists, it was so unique to have a young pianist in India, that they were like, "Yeah, we want to hear what you sound like!"

00:37:08.260 - 00:37:21.130

That's cool. I totally get what you're saying about, you know, the kind of influence of having just one teacher, where it's like, this

00:37:22.610 - 00:37:36.790

kind of relatively narrow and set way of doing things. But once you start hearing like not just all these different perspectives, but noticing that they're often like contradictory—you have to make those choices, right?

00:37:38.090 - 00:37:50.590

Yeah, so that's cool. You mentioned the—I also read in your CV, you mentioned the- these All-India music competitions that you participated in.

00:37:51.770 - 00:38:06.910

What- what were those? So, three… no, three of the four of them—oh, two of the four, were by this—were run by this organization

00:38:06.910 - 00:38:19.370

called the Mehli Mehta Music Foundation. And Mehli Metha is Zubin Mehta's father. And he was, you know, one of the pioneers of the Western classical music scene in Mumbai, way back when.

00:38:19.370 - 00:38:32.130

And so there's a foundation in his name that of course, Zubin supports as well. And so my first All-India competition was when I was 10 years old—and that one was an age group, so I think the age was up to 13 or something.

00:38:32.910 - 00:38:49.300

And it was the first competition of that stature that I'd ever done, and so I had, like, zero expectation of what was going to happen. And I ended up winning—and I remember it was my like first cash win, I won

00:38:49.300 - 00:38:58.840

10,000 rupees. And I remember getting the check, and I was—I told my mom, I was like, "What will I do with this money? And of course, I never saw it—it went

00:38:58.840 - 00:39:14.240

straight into my bank account . But that was like… I remember going home in the car and just being in shock. And then, when I was 13, I did my second All-India competition, it was the same organization.

00:39:14.640 - 00:39:29.110

And this one actually was up to the age of 30. And so at this point, I was with this old lady piano teacher, and the requirement of this competition was that you had to play a Beethoven Sonata. And I was 13, I had never played a Beethoven

00:39:29.110 - 00:39:42.650

Sonata before. But this teacher was like, "Well, why don't we try? And you can learn a Beethoven Sonata." And I was like, "Sure!" But—so she chose for me, and she chose the Les Adieux, Op. 81a, which is not an easy

00:39:42.940 - 00:39:55.460

Beethoven Sonata. If you were to give a 13 year old a Beethoven Sonata, you would definitely not go into the middle or late period. But this was her favorite Sonata because she had played it when she was at the Royal

00:39:55.490 - 00:40:04.830

College in London. And so she just—I don't think it really registered, at her age, that I was only 13. And so she just chose it for me, and so I learned it.

00:40:05.670 - 00:40:20.540

Um… and you know, I was like chugging along, preparing for the competition. And then this… Polish? No, he was a- a Lebanese pianist, I think. He came to give a concert.

00:40:20.540 - 00:40:34.160

And then there was a masterclass organized after the concert, and I was asked to play in it. So I went, and I played the first movement of the Sonata. And he had so

00:40:34.160 - 00:40:47.600

much to say about it, but was so excited about how I was responding that he just kept teaching me. Like, I was the last, I think, in the masterclass, and we just kept going and going. And then he, like—my dad had come with me,

00:40:47.600 - 00:40:57.110

and he told my dad—he was like, "She's really good! Like, tell me about you guys, what do you do? And he ended up coming to our home for dinner. And then like I had another lesson within the next day.

00:40:57.110 - 00:41:13.730

And that was a really transformative experience—both for that piece, but also for like my general musical development. And eventually, I came second in the competition. But one of the judges was an Indian pianist who'd

00:41:13.900 - 00:41:30.200

grown up in Germany, and she, I guess, saw a lot of potential. And so she asked my parents if I would want to come and spend the summer with her in Germany and take lessons, and potentially train to apply to music school

00:41:30.280 - 00:41:46.160

in Germany, because she was a professor at the college in Cologne. And so the- the same organization, the Mehli Mehta Music Foundation, they funded the plane tickets. And then I stayed with this lady—and her husband was a

00:41:46.220 - 00:42:00.630

classical guitarist, and they had a two-year-old kid. So I stayed with them for a month and a half during the summer and took lessons, and then I did that for two more summers after that. And that, I would say, is the big reason why I was able

00:42:00.630 - 00:42:18.650

to apply abroad for—you know, for study- studying piano. Because I saw other, you know, undergraduate-age students studying piano, when I would go to the college with her: I saw they had chamber music classes, they studied theory—all of these things that

00:42:18.650 - 00:42:30.090

I had no idea about, because people don't go to college for music from India. And so that was a huge eye-opening experience for me, because I didn't know that that was a possibility.

00:42:30.860 - 00:42:45.920

I had—at that point, when I was 13, 14, I had not thought about what I wanted to do in life. And then seeing that, I was like, "Okay, this is something that's really interesting to me—like, I'm good at it, I can see myself doing this." And so, starting at

00:42:45.960 - 00:42:57.960

14, I was thinking about applying to school for music. But academics was, you know, still the priority in my home.

00:42:59.040 - 00:43:09.420

So… I forgot your initial question, I'm sorry if I got totally off track . No, I think you—no, I think you answered it pretty much! You were asking me about my teachers, right?

00:43:09.420 - 00:43:24.290

Yeah- yeah, just about- just about your teachers and your experiences. And you pretty much, you know, covered your music education, so that's all really I was getting at, yeah! And so, your studies in Germany were kind of like what opened your eyes to doing music professionally?

00:43:25.020 - 00:43:35.090

Yeah, I had never seen anyone do that. I didn't know what you studied if you studied music. You know, I didn't know what the other subjects were, I didn't know what the setup was like—like, do you have a lesson once

00:43:35.090 - 00:43:45.690

a week? Like What does a college look like? A music college, you know? I'd never seen any of that. And so I really had this plan of applying to school in Germany to study music.

00:43:46.120 - 00:44:03.910

But then, in 11th and 12th grade, I switched schools. I went to a school where most of the students ended up applying to the US or to London for higher education, and that was my first experience meeting

00:44:03.940 - 00:44:16.390

kids who were on that track. So they did AP classes—like, you couldn't—it's not the same in the US where you switch, like you replace a normal class with an AP class. Here in India, since we have to do our Indian School Board , we do

00:44:16.390 - 00:44:32.100

the AP classes after school, like an extra thing. So they offered AP classes, they—you know, lots of them did the SAT, all of that stuff that I had no idea about. And they would have college fairs and representatives who would

00:44:32.100 - 00:44:47.220

come and talk about all the different US colleges. And so when that happened in 11th grade, I started to think about whether I wanted to do just music, which is what I would have had to do if I'd gone to Germany, or if I wanted to… you know, if I

00:44:47.220 - 00:45:02.090

was interested in other things as well. And I decided I really wanted to continue music but also study other subjects. Like I felt like I had done music and other things all my life, and it just—it didn't

00:45:02.220 - 00:45:17.620

feel right to stop everything else and just focus on music quite yet. So I sort of switched tracks at that point and thought about applying to the US because they had—you know, you could double major, you could do double degrees, all that kind of

00:45:17.620 - 00:45:32.920

stuff. And that's how I ended up going to Oberlin. Yeah… So, as you mentioned like a few times, like your—and since you did

00:45:32.920 - 00:45:46.090

the double degree program as well, you were juggling a lot in terms of academics, music, co-curriculars, jobs, things like that, in high school and college.

00:45:48.050 - 00:46:01.800

I remember reading actually—when I was doing my research, I remember reading this one article I think you wrote for Oberlin several years ago or something like that. And you're talking about this experience of juggling a lot. And you wrote that you eventually

00:46:03.000 - 00:46:21.400

kind of… focused, I guess, as you, you know, moved on in college. So like- could you tell me about like—I'm curious what impact do you think juggling all those things had on your- your mental health?

00:46:21.450 - 00:46:39.250

And how did you eventually come to focus a bit more? So interestingly, I never felt that I was busy in the moment, like especially when I was in school. I never felt like I didn't have time to have fun, because—I don't know, my-

00:46:39.880 - 00:46:54.270

my mom was both very strict, but also very loving and affectionate, and she likes to have fun herself. So what would happen is that we'd be working very hard, and then all of a sudden, she would be like, "Let's go see a movie." And that was

00:46:54.300 - 00:47:03.700

something that was really nice for us as kids, you know? We would watch American Idol as a family and do all of these fun things. So I never felt that

00:47:03.760 - 00:47:20.970

my mental health, even looking back- that it was affected by all of the different things I did. When I got to- to—actually, when I was in 11th and 12th grade, I remember when piano was really becoming a huge focus for me.

00:47:21.390 - 00:47:34.300

And at that point, I cut down on the other co-curriculars at school. Like, I didn't do the inter- house competitions anymore. I remember feeling really bummed about that, because up 'til

00:47:34.300 - 00:47:45.050

10th grade at my old school, that had been such a huge part of my life. But out of necessity, in 11th grade, I was doing the Licentiate Diploma in the Trinity College exams.

00:47:45.590 - 00:47:59.020

And that's like—it says that that certification is the equivalent of the end of your undergraduate degree in music. And so it was a big deal exam, and I really— you know, I had to practice

00:47:59.060 - 00:48:11.800

several hours a day. And so I couldn't sign up for the AP classes I wanted, I couldn't do the- the track relay that I really wanted to do. And that was a huge bummer for me.

00:48:13.220 - 00:48:26.870

But eventually, you know I-, looking back, I think it was a good thing that my parents helped me focus on the piano, because that would set me up for college, you know? Like, you can't do everything at college.

00:48:27.880 - 00:48:43.170

And so when I went to Oberlin, it was such an—it's such an open and exciting place, because pe- there are so many people there doing different things, and you can tell they've had different interests and are bringing that to

00:48:43.330 - 00:48:56.750

college and trying to take them further. And so, I remember in my freshman year, when I wrote that article, I was just so drawn by all of the possibilities around me. And because I was good at doing so many different things, I

00:48:56.960 - 00:49:12.390

felt like a draw to continue that. And then I very quickly realized that while you could like… how do I say it— you could interact with all of these different things, but you

00:49:12.500 - 00:49:27.160

couldn't do them to the level that other people were doing them when they were just focused on them. And so that kind of necessitated a- a withdrawal from a lot of the things that I was interested in but not passionate

00:49:28.550 - 00:49:47.670

about. And I actually think that... I didn't—I didn't feel like I was that busy when I was at Oberlin either. My struggles with… I would say

00:49:47.670 - 00:50:05.480

my mental health was most impacted when I had to really think about how I was going to transition what I was doing into a career beyond school. Because while I was in school, it was all fun, and, you know, it was just, "How do I do this thing and move on to the next thing?"

00:50:06.310 - 00:50:19.170

And then when I was a senior, I did a—I mean, since it was a double degree, it was five years. And so in my fourth year, doing- I started in this performance and improvisation program, which was really cool.

00:50:19.170 - 00:50:32.300

We would be—we would form a band of half-classical and half-jazz musicians and write our own music, and play world music and things like that. And I enjoyed that so much that I started to have these big doubts about being a

00:50:32.300 - 00:50:46.340

classical musician. I- at that point, I did not know that you could be a classical musician, but still fulfill my other interests of improvising and

00:50:46.870 - 00:50:59.870

playing off a lead sheet, and playing in a band and things like that. So I really thought it was either one or the other, because I didn't see anyone who was combining both. And I had this big crisis my senior

00:50:59.870 - 00:51:12.820

year like where I was very depressed, because it felt like I either had to completely forget about the improvising and just be a very serious classical pianist, or I had to completely switch tracks, you know, from something

00:51:12.860 - 00:51:28.200

I'd been doing for 15 years to something that I liked a lot, but didn't have the educational backing for. Like, I had never been taught how to improvise—I played by ear, but compared to, you know, the other jazz pianists at Oberlin,

00:51:28.200 - 00:51:38.690

I felt like I was so lacking in training. And that was a huge crisis for me. And I remember feeling very, very depressed, because it felt like such a huge

00:51:38.690 - 00:51:50.630

choice to make. And I remember talking to my parents about it, and they were like, "That's a really big—like, you should wait and think about if you actually want to make such a switch. Maybe you're just really excited about

00:51:50.680 - 00:52:09.200

this right now, because it's new, and you need to see how you feel in a few months or next year." And they were right in that, but I also think, what I needed was to see other people like me doing all of these different things, and

00:52:09.200 - 00:52:21.820

combining that into a portfolio career. And I didn't see that until I was in my master's, or once I came to Rice, even. Like, I started to hear about classical musicians who were

00:52:22.670 - 00:52:34.640

crossing genres and things like that. Um… I feel like that didn't answer your initial question, but— No, I think—it's not, you know—it's not always about just, you know,

00:52:35.520 - 00:52:51.910

answering questions, and then that's done. You know, it's just wherever the conversation goes. But that's definitely… I guess these various, sort of like, forks in the road or choices that you've had to make, that you've had to

00:52:51.910 - 00:53:05.620

resolve—yeah, I enjoyed hearing about—hearing about that. So… Yeah, so you went to the US study at Oberlin? What was your—you've talked a

00:53:05.620 - 00:53:22.260

little bit about it, but what was your initial experience like? What cultural adjustments did you find yourself having to make? Yeah, so like, what was good, what was tough, etc.? So, I'm sure you know what

00:53:22.260 - 00:53:34.340

Oberlin is like, a little bit. It's like—it's kind of a place where anything goes, right? And coming from India, where most people operate on very strict traditional Indian values—I definitely

00:53:34.340 - 00:53:48.720

thought like my parents were on the more liberal side in India. Like, they were very open with what they talked about; we were not forbidden to do anything, my sister and I. But, you know, I went to Oberlin, and… I'd always

00:53:48.720 - 00:54:03.470

kind of felt that like Indian society was so limiting in many ways. And then I went to Oberlin where- anything was possible. And I loved it. I just—there was no—people often ask me, "Was that a huge cultural shock?"

00:54:03.880 - 00:54:20.010

And sure, it was a shock in that it was really different, but I just felt like I fit into it immediately. I'm, in general, a very open minded person, so I love seeing and experiencing new things and new

00:54:20.010 - 00:54:34.800

ways of life. And I definitely went to the other extreme, you know, when I was at Oberlin. I experienced, you know, as much as I could, went to all sorts of events, had the craziest conversations with people.

00:54:35.340 - 00:54:47.470

And it was hugely mind opening in many ways. I think that's an underrated part of education that people don't always recognize—just like, the people you meet at college can teach you so much.

00:54:49.290 - 00:55:05.050

And I—you know, we had international orientation before the- the main American orientation, and so I met other international students from Thailand, and Zimbabwe, and Turkey. And those people are my closest friends still

00:55:05.980 - 00:55:21.980

today, because for all of us to come from our different cultures, and then be thrown into like this tiny town in the middle of cornfields in Ohio, it was like— we sort of, like, banded together and experienced all of the firsts.

00:55:21.980 - 00:55:33.940

You know, like I remember the first snow, and me and this friend I had from Thailand, we were screaming outside! It was this light smattering of snow, and I'd seen snow before when I was a kid, but it was just, like, insane.

00:55:33.940 - 00:55:47.990

And then of course, within months, we were sick of it. And I remember our first—we had a winter term in January, it was a month where you could work on your own projects, essentially. And so my first—so some people would

00:55:47.990 - 00:56:01.670

leave because it was a horrible winter in Ohio. And so they would go home, or go to, you know, warmer places for internships. But my first year, I ended up doing a German intensive at Oberlin, and so I was there for winter

00:56:01.670 - 00:56:15.700

term, as were many of my international friends who didn't go home. And the dining halls are closed during that month—or, you can—you have to like purchase it meal by meal. And so we decided to just get together and cook

00:56:16.460 - 00:56:28.390

in the dorm kitchen, which is not an ideal place to cook . But we would like, track through the snow to the local grocery store, and then like buy food and then cook together every evening.

00:56:28.810 - 00:56:44.600

And those were like really great, I don't know, bonding experiences, and a great way to make a new place feel like home, I think. Um, yeah… And- and musically, also

00:56:44.600 - 00:56:58.460

Oberlin is such a- such an open place. I think, I was pretty strictly within the classical idiom before I went to Oberlin, although I—you know, I played by ear and all that stuff.

00:56:58.630 - 00:57:14.630

But I had no exposure to New Music before I went to Oberlin, because that's—there is no interest in it, or exposure to it, in India. And when I went to Germany, also, there wasn't really much New Music at the college, at least that I

00:57:15.020 - 00:57:32.240

encountered. And so Oberlin has a very robust New Music program; their contemporary ensemble is one of the best in the country, and it has a fantastic director and conductor. And my junior year—I- I had this opinion of

00:57:32.290 - 00:57:45.240

New Music that was like, "It just… sounded like noise, and it was just not interesting." And didn't excite me the way, you know, tonal music did. And then my junior year, I was kind of forced into playing one of the pieces

00:57:45.330 - 00:57:59.500

because the original pianist had dropped out. And so one of the piano faculty begged me, he was like, "The concert is so soon, please do it." And I had such an amazing time learning it, 'cause it required skills that I

00:57:59.500 - 00:58:14.060

had, but weren't as heavily prioritized in traditional tonal music. Like, really good rhythm and being able to follow a conductor—those are things that I think are not— like the average classical pianist doesn't have to use as much.

00:58:15.040 - 00:58:28.180

And those were things that I was really good at. So I felt an immediate affinity for new music. And so that opened my eyes to something that's really important to me today. And then, of course, the whole world music and improvisation that

00:58:28.180 - 00:58:44.410

I did at Oberlin—I think Oberlin was extremely formative for me as a person and a musician. Um… Yeah, it's interesting to hear about that formative experience you had with playing piano in—what

00:58:45.170 - 00:59:02.610

piece was it? It was a piece by Augusta Reed Thomas, I think. Oh, okay. But yeah, just—you know, in New Music and contemporary classical, so often, much more than the canonic classical idiom, performers have more

00:59:02.610 - 00:59:15.400

active roles a lot of the time. And also what you're talking about—like, that attentiveness to conducting and the collaboration, or attentiveness to collaboration, that that engenders. Yeah, there's a lot of precision required, I think, which you can

00:59:15.400 - 00:59:25.730

get away with, you know, when you're playing tonal chamber music. Um… yeah, so it was—it was a cool experience. Yeah, that's cool.

00:59:27.000 - 00:59:43.700

Um, so you also, in addition to music—piano performance, you also majored in politics, that was your other degree? So yeah, what drew you to that subject? What within politics like most engages you?

00:59:44.500 - 01:00:00.050

So when I went to Oberlin, I really had no idea what I would major in. I thought economics for a little while, because that had been my extra elective subject in high school. And so I took an Econ 101 class, and you

01:00:00.050 - 01:00:12.850

know, the required calculus classes, and I was like, "This doesn't really excite me." And then I flirted with psychology for a little while—I took the intro psych classes, which, you know, is the massive lecture style classes.

01:00:13.180 - 01:00:25.890

And so that didn't really interest me. What interested me within psychology was like clinical psychiatry, and I quickly realized, in order to get to that, you had to go through many years of schooling and essentially study to

01:00:25.890 - 01:00:40.420

become a doctor. And that was not something I wanted to do. And then it just so happened that my second year, I took an international politics class, it was intro to international politics.

01:00:40.900 - 01:00:55.570

And we just- we just—it was a very—I don't even remember what we studied in the class, actually, because it was such a general intro to, you know, theories and conflicts and… But I remember really

01:00:55.950 - 01:01:16.600

enjoying it. It felt so relevant and interesting to learn that I was like, "Okay, maybe this could be my major. So I think I declared it after that semester. And then my junior year, I took what I think was

01:01:16.980 - 01:01:29.870

the most interesting class of my time at—within the college at Oberlin, which was international law. And, you know, international law both exists and doesn't exist. Like, there's

01:01:29.870 - 01:01:43.420

no really enforceable international law, you have treaties and organizations like the UN and whatever. But I- it was just so interesting—we wrote these memos that we would have to—we

01:01:44.270 - 01:01:55.660

would be given imaginary scenarios, and imagine like we were international law practitioners, and we would have to make recommendations to one country or another: like, what is permissible and what is not.

01:01:56.230 - 01:02:10.420

And I remember my friend—I was with one of my friends in the class, and we would just spend hours at the library looking up like obscure treaties and laws and coming up with these really intense memos, and that was really fun.

01:02:10.760 - 01:02:23.120

And so I decided then that if I was not going to do music, that that would be what I would do—I would do law with a focus on international law. And so at that point, I was pretty set within the politics major.

01:02:24.280 - 01:02:38.930

But, you know, I did so much more within the music school, that politics was never a huge focus for me. I still made sure I did well in all my classes, but I didn't do any of the internships, for example, that my friends would

01:02:39.060 - 01:02:53.800

look for over the summer; I would, you know, go to a music festival every summer. And I didn't look for any of the politic- politics extracurriculars that one might need to apply for grad school, for example, or to get a job.

01:02:55.390 - 01:03:10.120

But I don't remember consciously making that decision. I think I was just so good and so active in the music school that I- it just felt natural to continue along that path. So I never really sat down and decided that music was what I

01:03:10.120 - 01:03:23.850

wanted to focus on. Yeah, gotcha, makes sense. Cool. So, after Oberlin you went to Peabody? Yeah, tell me about that, tell me

01:03:23.850 - 01:03:33.290

about your experience there. Peabody was very different from Oberlin. There was much less sense of community and openness to like different musical styles.

01:03:33.290 - 01:03:49.760

I actually felt quite stifled at Peabody, I would say. However, my teacher at Peabody was amazing. And that- those three years that I was at Peabody was the biggest period of pianistic growth that I

01:03:49.780 - 01:04:04.930

experienced during, you know, my time in the US. He was just a very, very good piano teacher—like, he could watch you play and immediately be able to diagnose what wasn't working. And like the things that you felt but

01:04:04.930 - 01:04:20.920

didn't know how to articulate or could not diagnose yourself, he was really good at that. And I think he also saw— he was really good about seeing what each student was uniquely strong at. So I feel like when I auditioned for

01:04:20.920 - 01:04:37.410

master's programs, I had a lot of passion and vitality in my playing, but it wasn't necessarily supported by the technical skill that one might expect. And he sort of saw all of this potential and said, "Well, this is something I

01:04:37.410 - 01:04:52.140

can work with." And so we did so much good work in those three years that it really set me up well for like, competitions and for a doctoral program and everything. So I'm very grateful for my time at Peabody just because I learned so much as a pianist.

01:04:52.850 - 01:05:04.770

But in terms of general musical fulfillment… I mean, I played with the new music ensemble there. But at the school, it wasn't something that was prioritized.

01:05:04.840 - 01:05:16.170

And that was something that I missed. Like, the quality of the new music program there wasn't… you know, at least the part that was supported by the school, it wasn't very well supported.

01:05:17.340 - 01:05:26.770

And so I definitely lacked that. But I did play a lot of the student composers' new pieces. And so that was something I

01:05:27.080 - 01:05:41.860

found out that I had a natural affinity for— was just like interpreting something completely new. I think, especially with those composers, they liked having me play their pieces, because I could imagine what it might

01:05:42.630 - 01:05:58.400

be, you know, if it was played with intention and- with gestures, and things like that, rather than trying to play all of the notes very perfectly—which is I think what a lot of classical pianists tend to do, you know, when they play

01:05:58.400 - 01:06:12.980

new music, which kind of loses the general idea of it sometimes. So that was something I did a lot, I did a lot of premieres. One cool thing that I got to do was play with Alarm Will Sound because there was a residency they

01:06:12.980 - 01:06:29.530

did. So that was, I guess, definitely a highlight of my time there. Yeah, that's cool. Um, branching off the thing you said about playing work by composition students and new

01:06:29.530 - 01:06:45.800

music. So, since that's something that you're into and that you do, how does your approach to learning those and playing those sorts of pieces differ from just your approach to learning music by canonic composers?

01:06:46.150 - 01:06:56.310

Especially 'cause like, with living composers, you know, sometimes you get to actually work it through with them. Yeah, right. Yeah, and that's something I really enjoy—saying, like, "What are you trying to do here?

01:06:56.310 - 01:07:08.600

And are you doing it in the most effective way possible?" Especially when they're my age, you know, it's like a nice relationship that you can have with them. Um… I- I find I tend to approach

01:07:08.670 - 01:07:23.400

canonical composers more tentatively, because there is a traditional way of playing that music. And my fear with traditional music is always that I'm going against the grain of how it's traditionally played, and that can be either

01:07:23.400 - 01:07:36.060

well-received or ill-received by listeners. Whereas with new music, you know, you have this opportunity to make it your own. And that's something that's really exciting to me.

01:07:36.130 - 01:07:49.520

So when I look at a piece of music that's not been performed before, or that has been rarely performed before, there's—I approach it with a certain freedom that I think I don't do with the canonical repertoire.

01:07:49.520 - 01:08:05.060

I think that's really the biggest difference—like, even when I sit down to play through it, I just feel freer. . Hmm okay... Um, so after Peabody, you

01:08:05.350 - 01:08:19.720

came to Shepherd in Houston, right? Yeah. So, why did you end up coming to Houston? It was actually- a sort of last-minute choice to apply to

01:08:19.770 - 01:08:32.840

Rice, because I didn't know of—I mean, I knew of Shepard as a fantastic school for orchestral instruments, because a lot of the really good players from Oberlin had gone to Rice for their master's.

01:08:33.220 - 01:08:50.730

But I didn't know anything about the piano program or about the doctorate program here. And so when I was looking for schools to apply to, I just happened to like send a message to my undergrad teacher. And I was like, you know, "These are the places I'm applying to, what

01:08:50.730 - 01:09:03.690

do you think?" And he was like, "What about Rice? John Kimura Parker is really good." And so I- I looked up the program online, and I looked up my teacher online.

01:09:04.230 - 01:09:21.840

And my teacher has a very active online presence—he has a Facebook for his studio, and you can learn a lot about him just by doing a little bit of research. And he just seemed so cool, because he is obviously like a classical pianist of great stature—you know, he's won the

01:09:21.840 - 01:09:33.240

Leeds competition. But also, he's done a lot of other genre-crossing stuff, plays a lot of chamber music, is a huge entrepreneur; like no one else I've seen in the field.

01:09:33.780 - 01:09:45.560

And that was hugely exciting for me. Because my teacher at Peabody, while he was a very good pianistic teacher, he had been within the field of pedagogy for so long and not been performing that he,

01:09:45.870 - 01:09:58.810

you know, had only one perspective. And I felt like with the amazing foundation, pianistically, that I'd gotten from him, I felt that I would really benefit from studying with someone who could give me like a professional

01:09:58.810 - 01:10:13.850

perspective on creating a performance career and things like that. And so I just—you know, I sent Dr. Parker an email a few days before the applications were due. And I said, "Do you have a place in your studio?" I sent him a video of mine, and he

01:10:13.850 - 01:10:27.800

really liked, you know, my—I guess, my perspective and what I wanted to do with my career. And so that's how I ended up at Rice. And then once I came here, I actually—once I got in, and did research

01:10:27.880 - 01:10:44.980

on the doctorate program, I thought it was one of the better structured programs out of any of the ones I'd looked at. I think the faculty at Rice have done an amazing job of figuring out what their strengths are as a school and really focusing on what they can

01:10:44.980 - 01:10:59.410

equip their doctoral students to do. So here, there's a very heavy emphasis on preparing you for a teaching career, and that was something that other schools kind of do, but not with the same focus.

01:11:00.250 - 01:11:18.270

And I thought that would be a very useful thing to get out of doctorate program. Yeah! So, so far, with Shepherd, you've had like… you've had a good experience?

01:11:18.270 - 01:11:33.490

Just like, you know—not just with classes, you know, but the other facets of the school? Yes, I think Shepherd is amazing. I think there's a level of rapport with the students,

01:11:34.050 - 01:11:47.400

between the students and the faculty and the administration that most other music schools don't have. It's kind of similar—I think the level of community is similar to Oberlin, which is

01:11:47.400 - 01:12:02.260

something that's really nice. I think everyone seems to be on the same page. And since it's such a small school, there's a lot of care from the faculty to the students, which is

01:12:02.260 - 01:12:16.370

really great. So yeah, I've had a great experience. You know, everyone is very open to new ideas of things you might want to do, and very supportive, so it's- it’s great. I think it's a general—from what I've seen, a general

01:12:17.710 - 01:12:34.180

atmosphere at Rice as a whole. Yeah, that's great! Um, so what do you like about Houston generally, if you've had time to sort of, you know,

01:12:35.200 - 01:12:51.900

immerse yourself in the city or get to know the city—like, so far, what do- what do you appreciate about it? I think especially coming from first Oberlin, and then Baltimore, I think Houston's diversity is like its

01:12:51.950 - 01:13:05.560

greatest strength. I mean, the fact that I can walk down the street and get amazing tacos, and then go and get a banh mi and all of these things. You know, it's like—in Baltimore—Baltimore is diverse, but I feel

01:13:05.560 - 01:13:15.260

like segregated. And Houston's diverse—I think there are neighborhoods that might be predominantly Indian, or you know, a Chinatown and things like that.

01:13:15.330 - 01:13:26.990

But it feels like everywhere you go in Houston, you're encountering people from all over the world, and with different perspectives, and different cultures, which I think is amazing. And that's something I've really enjoyed.

01:13:26.990 - 01:13:42.530

It’s like, I've met so many different people in my time at Houston. I have a church job, and it's about 20 minutes away. And that church is an LGBTQ-friendly, minority-friendly church.

01:13:42.920 - 01:13:56.770

And those services are so uplifting. I mean, atheists attend, and the pastor is a gay Black man with a husband, and they really promote, you know, a feeling of community

01:13:58.480 - 01:14:13.430

and acceptance that I previously would never have associated with the South, to be honest. Before I moved to Houston, it was kind of scary to think that I was moving to Texas, because I had—you know, the furthest South I've really ever lived

01:14:13.610 - 01:14:24.880

was Baltimore. And so I was apprehensive about moving to Texas, but I really don't think Houston—at least the parts of Houston that I've been in, I don't think it feels like the Texas I imagined.

01:14:26.330 - 01:14:46.360

You know, people are very welcoming and inclusive, and I feel like this is the first city in the US that I felt was home. Yeah, that's interesting. So in addition to, I guess, music school and this church,

01:14:46.360 - 01:15:03.030

are there any other communities you find yourself in? In Houston? So I'm a young artist with the Da Camera Chamber Music Society, and through that, I've done a lot of performances at museums and schools and things

01:15:03.270 - 01:15:15.850

like that. And so through that, I've met a lot of different people. Obviously, the people who come to the museums are really from all over—like, they come from within Houston, but also outside, like tourists who are visiting.

01:15:18.400 - 01:15:33.980

And we often play like rather obscure new music in these settings, and so people are—it's always interesting to see people's reactions to them. And then, of course, I've done little things, like music encounters and teaching sessions at schools.

01:15:34.690 - 01:15:48.640

And recently, we- we performed a newly composed school song that Nicky composed, actually, for The Hub. Yeah, so that was also really cool, because I had no idea that there was this school that specifically

01:15:48.690 - 01:16:05.320

catered to kids with learning disabilities, or who needed—who just need different help Yeah, and so that was pretty amazing to see, that there was a very robust community that supported that.

01:16:05.900 - 01:16:22.840

Um… yeah, so I feel like I've seen a lot of different random communities in my time in Houston. And then one of my friends here works with West Street Recovery, and does a lot of social work around.

01:16:22.840 - 01:16:36.000

And so I've played at little benefit concerts to raise awareness for, like, when they were trying to stop the highway expansion of I-45. Um, and then Nicky and I actually like cooked all those meals after the freeze

01:16:37.310 - 01:16:52.610

to donate to people who, you know, couldn't—who didn't have access to their kitchens or whatever. And so, I feel like I've met very- more people doing completely different things than I do than I ever have in my other time in

01:16:53.510 - 01:17:08.290

other spots in the US, yeah. Yeah, that's really cool! Um, I relate to the thing you said about—I just thought the thing you said about the music that's played in museums and things

01:17:08.500 - 01:17:22.650

like that. It's funny that—I think that that's probably one of the most visible venues in which people hear sound art, or more textural new music and things like that. And it's… I

01:17:23.220 - 01:17:36.290

think a lot of people's first encounters with experimental or new music in and of itself is like, "This sounds like museum or exhibition music" . Right! And I honestly think that when people go into a museum,

01:17:36.890 - 01:17:50.150

they turn their minds on in a way that they can… they can absorb new and experimental sound. Because when you go to a museum, you're saying, "Okay,

01:17:50.150 - 01:18:07.090

I'm going to take this time to sort of slow down and absorb art." And that is a very helpful frame of mind for hearing new music for the first time, you know? 'Cause it's such a time-oriented art, music —like, you have to

01:18:07.090 - 01:18:21.990

just sit and process it as it develops through time. And it's very hard to do if you just hear it on a computer screen, or encounter it in any other setting.

01:18:22.410 - 01:18:40.840

It's much easier, I think, to do in a museum. Yeah, that makes sense, yeah! So, how would you say that… I guess the- how would you say… actually, I

01:18:42.420 - 01:18:58.180

don't—maybe—maybe I'll come back to that one later, actually. Sorry . Um, let's see… So once, you know, the pandemic happened like, how did that

01:18:58.780 - 01:19:15.020

impact you initially? Like, how did that change things for you? What was it like at first, and how are things now? So I think the biggest impact that the pandemic has had on me is that I've not been able to go home in three

01:19:15.270 - 01:19:29.930

years now. So the summer when I first moved to Houston, my parents visited for graduation and they helped me move here. So considering—and then, you know, the following summer—last summer, I would have gone home,

01:19:29.970 - 01:19:42.230

but of course the pandemic happened. And this summer as well, I was planning to go home in the middle of May, right after classes ended. But COVID has been really bad in India, it suddenly got really bad towards the end of

01:19:42.270 - 01:19:55.760

April. And so my trip is now postponed to December. And… so it'll be three and a half years, you know that I haven't been home. So now it feels weird to even call it home, because I'm so much more comfortable

01:19:56.450 - 01:20:10.780

here in my little apartment in Houston. I've just forgotten the sensation of being home in my childhood home, and walking down the street and eating the food, and the smells and the air is

01:20:10.810 - 01:20:27.290

different. So that's been something that's really hard; I haven't seen my parents in—it'll be two and a half years. And that has really sucked. Um, when the pandemic first started, I was doing

01:20:27.630 - 01:20:41.940

pretty good in terms of keeping myself busy. Because I think everyone was motivated to, you know, reach out to people and have some calls and FaceTime chats, and catch up.

01:20:42.040 - 01:20:56.000

And in a way, it gave me a chance to do all of those things that otherwise I didn't have time to do. But I felt a huge drop in my motivation to practice.

01:20:56.560 - 01:21:11.880

Like, you know, performances were canceled, it felt like I had nothing to practice for. And I realized that a lot of my motivation to practice was extrinsic—like, it was motivated by, like, "What is the next thing that I have to prepare for?" And that was kind of

01:21:11.990 - 01:21:23.730

eye-opening, 'cause I realized I can't always rely on that extrinsic factor to, you know, motivate myself. And it kind of forced me to slow down and

01:21:23.730 - 01:21:40.970

really think about what I wanted to do with music. You know, like, did I want to stay within academia, or did I want to—what did I want to say, even, with the music I play, or with who I am as an artist? And then, of course, you know, the Black Lives Matter protests started

01:21:40.970 - 01:21:53.360

happening. And that was also a big turning point, I think, for people, especially within the field of classical music. We're so behind on issues of diversity and equity and inclusion.

01:21:54.800 - 01:22:10.990

And fortunately, that was a bit of a wake up call for a lot of organizations and people in charge. And they, you know, for better or for worse, have been taking all of these steps to ensure

01:22:12.210 - 01:22:26.390

that their organizations are "woke." And some of those have been more superficial than others. And as a person of color, I

01:22:26.390 - 01:22:42.780

think, it's been interesting to see how organizations respond to these calls for diversity. But I did feel a very renewed sense of responsibility, also, when all of this happened, as a

01:22:42.780 - 01:23:00.270

person of color, to ensure that I was doing as much as I could with music to draw attention to certain underrepresented voices, and, you know, promote—just like, do the work to find composers and pieces

01:23:00.780 - 01:23:10.340

that are not commonly played. I think people think that these issues can be solved just by programming a Black composer at a concert. And it's not that.

01:23:10.340 - 01:23:19.870

It's like putting in the work to find the composers who you don't normally program, even though that work is just as good as the Beethoven and Brahms you always do, you know?

01:23:19.940 - 01:23:35.400

And so, the pandemic, I think, gave us time to actually sit down and do that. And I saw—like, I had a friend who did a project for a month where every day she would post a new piece or a new composer on her social media from an underrepresented community.

01:23:35.710 - 01:23:48.690

And that was eye-opening, I found out about so many composers that way. And I think that the pandemic had so many downsides,

01:23:52.500 - 01:24:05.390

but unfortunately, it was the thing that kind of made us all slow down and rethink anything. And it's sad that that had to happen for us to do that. But… yeah.

01:24:05.810 - 01:24:20.890

I would say coming out of it… I- I don't want to say my mental health is better, but I do feel like I know myself better. Um… I mean, I think I—I totally get what you're

01:24:22.010 - 01:24:41.060

saying about… yeah the work that needs to be done in terms of- not just finding, but kind of unerasing these works of classical and classical-adjacent music by all these people of color and non-men and things like that.

01:24:41.110 - 01:24:57.390

I mean, I think when I was doing research, I—well, I remember that even during last semester, you told us about- this performance of something by this composer… I'm not sure how to pronounce it—Milad Yousufi?

01:24:58.090 - 01:25:11.930

Is that it? Oh yeah, Milad Yousufi! Yes, he's an Irani refugee composer. Yeah, so that's really cool! I also—something that really made

01:25:12.250 - 01:25:25.660

me excited was—I saw that you also participated in a performance of "Anthem" by George Lewis. I love George Lewis, he's such a like- idiosyncratic mind—just the way he incorporates

01:25:27.620 - 01:25:37.920

interactive electronics and improvising. Yeah. I gotta say, you know, 'cause we're—that concert series that I did it for is based in Austin, and so we put it together with click tracks.

01:25:38.230 - 01:25:53.490

So I didn't hear any of the other parts, I just recorded mine with a click track, which was not a fun experience at all. Not the recording with the click track, but just—my part was so difficult, and I couldn't—I just couldn't figure out its context within

01:25:53.920 - 01:26:04.120

the piece, which is normally how you, you know, put together new music pieces. And your part within—and I couldn't do that. And it just sounded like a whole mess of

01:26:04.180 - 01:26:19.800

nothing to me. And then, I hear it finally put together in the piece as a whole—I was just so blown away. Like, I hated the piece when I was learning it, and then thought it was so cool once I heard—you know, saw the video.

01:26:20.110 - 01:26:30.880

Which I don't know if you saw, but I can send you. I saw that—I found the video on YouTube, I think, and I saw that it was like a Zoom setup kind of thing. But yeah, that's super cool.

01:26:31.820 - 01:26:45.280

Okay. Um, something I wanted to, I guess, follow up on that you touched on a little bit was like— well, you were mentioning how, you know, you haven't been home in three years.

01:26:45.570 - 01:27:00.880

And… sort of not able to see those people, or in general… yeah, yeah, the isolation with the lockdown and everything. So, more generally, just—having

01:27:03.950 - 01:27:17.200

lived in these different places, and moved and all that, and having made relationships and friendships in these places, how have you, you know, maintained them? Has there been any

01:27:18.330 - 01:27:36.720

difficulty in that? Yeah, I think—you know, I have very few people I'm still close to from back home. I have like, two friends from high school, who- I've

01:27:37.660 - 01:27:48.010

been pretty good about staying in touch with. I mean, it goes up—it comes and goes, I would say. But definitely over the last couple years, we've been really good about keeping in touch and

01:27:49.320 - 01:28:03.810

supporting each other. They also both came to the US to study, though at different schools. And so, you know, we've been kind of all over the world at this point, and we've kept in touch. But in general, I think, we had this big

01:28:03.810 - 01:28:19.680

drive to communicate with people at the beginning of the pandemic—and then we all kind of got tired of it, and sort of retreated further back into our little bubbles. And I definitely think as—you know, for me as a person,

01:28:19.780 - 01:28:34.890

I find it hard to reach out, I'm not as good about reaching out to people as some of my friends are. And that is something I've noticed like- I've been missing over the last few years.

01:28:34.890 - 01:28:48.190

Like, keeping in touch with some of my undergrad friends, or even my master's , you know, once I left Baltimore. But I don't know, it's like the pandemic sort of... showed

01:28:48.190 - 01:29:07.200

us the importance of maintaining those relationships. But it also felt like we were, I don't know, further than ever. I don't know, social media is like a weird thing. I feel like the people I see on my social media and see updates about their lives are

01:29:07.200 - 01:29:18.610

people who I will never meet, whereas—and then- but then we tend to rely on those social media posts to find out how people are doing. But I

01:29:19.690 - 01:29:35.480

don't see updates from my closest friends, and those are the people I need to actually reach out to, if that makes sense. I don't know, it's… social media is isolating, but also connecting. I think that's really been driven home

01:29:35.480 - 01:29:55.310

during the pandemic. Um, so I think I want to—I don't know, just to like… in this last bit, I just like kind of want to… ask a few unrelated things, I guess.

01:29:55.310 - 01:30:13.560

I don't know, just things that are not sort of—yeah, things are just more kind of, you know, asking some things you like and things like that. Yeah, so who are some of your favorite composers

01:30:15.020 - 01:30:31.650

to listen to or play or perform? And what have you been listening to lately? So right now, I'm preparing for a chamber music festival in San Diego that's happening at the end of July. So I've been practicing and

01:30:32.020 - 01:30:46.480

listening to a lot of that stuff, which is quite a—it's an interesting set of pieces I'm putting together. I'm playing a Beethoven trio, a Shostakovich trio, the Ives trio, and… we chose a trio by Daron

01:30:46.520 - 01:31:02.730

Hagen, who's an American composer. And so I've been listening to a lot of that stuff, just to prepare. For outside of classical music, I found a really cool band, it's—I think it must be pretty

01:31:02.730 - 01:31:16.080

new, because they don't have a lot of stuff out yet, just one album—it's called Valipala. And it's like a very fun like funk, groove, horn—big horn section kind of vibe, which is my favorite kind of music to listen to.

01:31:16.080 - 01:31:31.840

Like, I love… you know, the RH Factor, and Snarky Puppy, and like, those—or Moonchild, those kinds of groups. And so I'm like, kind of going back to

01:31:31.840 - 01:31:50.930

listening to, sort of, the favorites that have kept me going throughout the pandemic. Um, for composers I like to play… It's hard for me to say composers more than like pieces, but I would say

01:31:50.930 - 01:32:11.730

Scriabin and—Scriabin and Beethoven, weirdly, are composers I'm particularly drawn to. Beethoven is so challenging, but I feel like once I wrap my head around it, it feels very much a

01:32:11.840 - 01:32:25.750

part of me, surprisingly, in a way that Mozart never can feel. But I enjoy Scriabin's harmonies. Like, I'm really into lush harmony, my favorite

01:32:26.260 - 01:32:42.190

thing. And Scriabin definitely scratches all those itches, you know, and it's very satisfying. And of course, I'm working on the Berg Sonata- I have been the past few months. So there's that…

01:32:45.860 - 01:32:58.580

yeah, who else? I feel like I'm due to pick up a large Bach work. I don't know, Goldberg Variations or something—something that will just be very big and personal.

01:32:59.060 - 01:33:09.720

And I'll just, like, slowly trudge my way through it, you know? But right now, I'm just anxious about preparing for this festival, because it's like the first big thing I've really done since the pandemic.

01:33:09.720 - 01:33:23.030

Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah. Well, I was gonna say that, like—I mean, I think I can sort of pick up on your preference for lush, harmonies and

01:33:23.830 - 01:33:36.350

that kind of coloristic music in like, some of the stuff you upload, like… what was it? Like there was some Janacek, Danielpour, Franck—yeah, things like that. It totally makes sense to me,

01:33:36.350 - 01:33:50.040

that preference. Um, okay. So, you mentioned a lot of collaborations you've done like in your bio on your site; what are some of your favorite collaborative experiences?

01:33:51.950 - 01:34:08.420

Um… I'm trying to remember which ones I listed. So— Yeah, the most interesting ones were during my PI program, I think—the Performance and Improvisation Program at Oberlin.

01:34:08.900 - 01:34:23.500

Because we had visiting artists from a lot of different musical genres—or musical cultures, I should say, not just genre. Like, we had a Brazilian pianist come in, and when they would come in, we would play some of their

01:34:23.540 - 01:34:37.500

tunes, and they would kind of help us improvise through them and then perform them with us. And it's almost like you're getting to meet a composer and understanding his vision of it, right? Because it's- it’s like getting to do

01:34:37.500 - 01:34:51.190

what we want to do with Beethoven, or any of the composers who have—you know, who are long gone. 'Cause you're understanding the vision in real time. And so that was something that was amazing.

01:34:51.890 - 01:35:07.510

Um because… also because as a pianist who is not—I mean, I'm not trained in improvisation or anything like that. And so of course, the jazz musicians were a lot more well-equipped to do that kind of stuff.

01:35:08.250 - 01:35:23.020

But I found that these visiting artists and the jazz musicians in general had a lot of respect for what I brought to the table as a classical musician. Like, the sort of harmonies that I heard

01:35:23.900 - 01:35:39.390

and then produced were, of course, influenced by the music we were playing, but also heavily influenced by the music I play as a classical musician, and they really enjoyed that. And that is something I think we don't do as much as classical musicians—

01:35:39.390 - 01:35:52.970

is respecting what each person brings individually to the table, no matter—especially when it's really different. I think we could all use a little bit more of that. So I think that's—

01:35:53.300 - 01:36:13.050

those were definitely the most interesting collaborations that I had. Um, could you tell me a bit about this project that I've read about— I think it's with Nicky and Irène Han.

01:36:13.410 - 01:36:24.750

like grant funding for, from New Music USA, that seemed—yeah, that seemed pretty interesting. I was wondering what that was all about. So this was—actually we put this whole thing together

01:36:26.730 - 01:36:39.010

right before the pandemic started. And Irène and I were roommates in Baltimore, we were both doing our master's. She's a cellist, and she, um… she grew up in

01:36:39.380 - 01:36:50.310

France, and then moved to the US for, you know, undergrad, and then has kind of stayed there. But she is very French, but also ethnically Korean.

01:36:51.710 - 01:37:08.260

And, we just—we had many conversations about how people would look at us and make certain assumptions, and then talk to us and make different assumptions. And then hear us play music

01:37:08.260 - 01:37:22.910

and make still more assumptions about us, and how hard it was to- communicate who we were with, you know, simple sentences like, "I am from Mumbai," you know? That, like, doesn't capture anything about me.

01:37:24.280 - 01:37:38.730

And we were just—we've been talking about this a lot, and then she told me about this grant from New Music USA. And we really wanted to do a piece that sort of captured that. And Nicky is sort of similar in that she's, you

01:37:38.840 - 01:37:53.190

know, Korean, but she spent so much of her life in the US, and we are all defined by the fact that we've lived in so many different places. And so I asked Nicky to write it, and what we wanted to do was- sort of move away from

01:37:53.190 - 01:38:12.720

these cultural labels of like, Indian, Korean, French, whatever, and show how who we are is so based on the experiences we've had in our lives. And so we wanted to—so we're doing a five-movement cello and piano work.

01:38:13.560 - 01:38:27.150

And the whole point is to foreground the individual, you know, the individual's experience. So there's a movement based on each of the three of us, and then two more people, and a film to kind of go along with it.

01:38:27.150 - 01:38:41.880

So we're gonna do an interview with this person and sort of get a general view of their life story, like what's brought them to the point that they are in- in their lives right now. Um, and Nicky's written a movement,

01:38:42.720 - 01:38:56.010

based on each person's life. So I remember Irene was the first one to write, you know, a little essay about her life and memories of childhood and things like that. And it was so interesting—like, Nicky read it, and then she

01:38:56.050 - 01:39:07.010

picked up on like the most random thing. So Irene had mentioned this street, like Rue or something, in Paris, where she'd grown up nearby.

01:39:07.010 - 01:39:22.030

And then, many, many years later, like 12 years later, had gone back home and met a friend and she told her friend, "Oh, isn't this building on that street?" And the friend was like, "No, what?" And I—that was such a strong memory of Irène's that this building had been

01:39:22.030 - 01:39:33.230

there, right? But it turns out it was a completely false memory. And that was one of the themes that we were exploring is like, how we hold on to these very vague, blurry memories,

01:39:33.890 - 01:39:43.950

to tie ourselves to different places. And so Nicky just picked up on that one little thing, and she wrote this movement and called it Rue . Um, and I

01:39:44.520 - 01:39:57.470

think it's just very cool—the things that draw us together but also make us different. So that's kind of how the whole thing came about—just sort of coming together with people I've met in different aspects of my life to make

01:39:57.470 - 01:40:15.260

some music. Yeah, yeah. Um, I just have one or two more questions that I want to ask you. So, I also read in your- in your site bio that you like cooking.

01:40:15.590 - 01:40:26.490

So how did you get into that? And yeah, what do you like to cook? So when I was a kid, my grandmother was like—I feel like part of her identity was cooking, you know,

01:40:26.490 - 01:40:38.540

because she just loved cooking for family. And whenever we went—she lived very close to us, so we would go over to her house very often. And that was the way she expressed love— is- was through food.

01:40:40.240 - 01:40:51.450

And my dad also loves to cook; my mom absolutely hates it, and so she will not enter the kitchen unless she absolutely needs to. And so my dad, whenever he would be back from the ship, he would always cook really

01:40:51.450 - 01:41:05.790

interesting things and kind of experiment in the kitchen. And I- am very similar to my dad in many ways, and my sister to my mom. So I don't know if that was part of it—like, I was just so intrigued by food.

01:41:07.450 - 01:41:20.320

But I have a very early memory of—we had a cook who used to come to our house to cook a few times a week, especially when my dad was out on the ship. And she was making something in the kitchen, and I went in and I asked her how to

01:41:20.320 - 01:41:29.940

make it—I must have been like, four or five years old. And she was like, "Well, why do you need to know how to make it?" And I was like, "Well, I'm gonna need to cook one day for my children." And she thought that was so funny—that

01:41:30.300 - 01:41:45.740

as a five year old, I was planning that. But… I think, I mean, I was always interested in cooking, but the experience I told you actually of my freshman year at Oberlin, when we all kind of—the international students banded together—that

01:41:46.170 - 01:41:56.810

was the first time I actually looked up recipes and experimented with stuff. Like, I definitely took charge with that whole experience and cooked things that I wanted to.

01:41:56.810 - 01:42:11.220

And that was my first experience experimenting in the kitchen. And at that point, I mostly cooked Western food. And it was only once I got to Baltimore and I had my own kitchen

01:42:11.720 - 01:42:25.510

in a house, and could go to different grocery stores, that I started experimenting with other cultures of food—also because I had access to eating them. And so for me now, I mean, I feel like I cook from a different culture every

01:42:25.510 - 01:42:43.320

single day. It's one of the best ways that I like exploring different cultures, I think—through food. Food can hold so many memories and so many ideas about a place. Yeah. Yeah… I mean, yeah, the food culture in

01:42:44.200 - 01:42:57.290

Houston is like— Yeah, it's concomitant with its diversity, you know? So much here, yeah! Yeah, cool… So,

01:42:58.890 - 01:43:17.070

the last thing I want to ask you is, could you share with me one thing you love about yourself? Oh! Okay. I- I love that I always want to try and learn new things.

01:43:17.700 - 01:43:39.740

I have, I think, a curiosity about—or I guess- an interest in novelty that makes me constantly seek out learning opportunities, which— it keeps me interested and excited for like every day.

01:43:39.740 - 01:43:59.500

Like, every day is a new opportunity to sort of try something new and experiment, and that is something that I love about myself, yeah. Thanks for sharing that… yeah, um, I think that's all I- I wanted to- I wanted

01:43:59.890 - 01:44:15.230

to get through. Is there anything else, you know, you would like to talk about, or that you, you know, wanted to be asked? I feel like we've covered my entire 27 years of life, so that was great! . Yeah, we've covered a lot!

01:44:15.230 - 01:44:32.460

Yeah. Yeah… No, that was great, I can't think of anything that- Alright! Well, yeah, I had a really good time talking with you and getting to know your life story and all that. It's… yeah, just really enjoyed

01:44:33.730 - 01:44:37.960

hearing everything you had to say! Cool! Well thank you for asking me to do this!