DECEMBER NEWSLETTER
I hope this finds you well and that your holiday season has gotten off to a great start. I’m just beginning my annual jaunt of Messiahs, which all happen to blessedly be in the same time zone this year. (There have been years when the Messiah tour has spanned multiple continents, in addition to numerous time zones…!)
Last week’s Thanksgiving holiday was chaotic and delicious in all the ways it’s supposed be. Noah and I hosted roughly 25 friends and family members, with multiple generations gathered (and running around) the dinner table. After the last few years of somber Thanksgivings navigating various family tragedies and health struggles, we are both hopeful that last week marks the beginning of a new chapter of joyful holiday gatherings with the incredible community we feel so lucky to have surrounding us.
performing with Anna Tilbrook, piano at Wigmore Hall | Photo credit: Darius Weinberg, © Wigmore Hall, 2025
Looking further back in November, our new album, Rebecca Clarke: The Complete Songs, officially came out into the world. My Clarke colleagues and I were astonished to see that the record debut at #9 on the Classical Charts in its first week. This project has been more than three years in the making, and to see Clarke’s music resonating with so many listeners is deeply moving. Kitty, Anna, and I are enormously grateful to everyone who has already taken the time to listen, share, and spread the word. If you haven’t had a chance yet, I hope you’ll find a quiet moment to dive into this remarkable body of work—Clarke’s voice feels as urgent and fresh today as ever.
The album release was beautifully intertwined with our Rebecca Clarke Focus Day at Wigmore Hall, a marathon of 4 concerts devoted to her music. It was a joy (and a bit of an athletic event!) to spend an entire day living inside Clarke’s sound world alongside such wonderful colleagues. To explore her songs and chamber works on the Wigmore stage, and to feel the audience leaning in with such curiosity and warmth, was a real highlight of my year. Those performances felt like both a celebration and a long-overdue homecoming for Clarke’s music.
performing Fellow Citizens with Myra Huang at the Kennedy Center
From London, I flew to New York City for a wonderful week working with the excellent artists of the Metropolitan Opera’s Lindemann Young Artist Development Program as they prepared for their fall recital. It’s always a privilege to work with such gifted young musicians, each of whom shows extraordinary promise. Meeting them at this pivotal moment—right at the end of their formal, institutional training—is endlessly fascinating. While they’re on the brink of launching into the world, part of the work is gently reminding them that the learning never stops (a lesson I’m forever trying to remind myself as well!).
Another November milestone was a Kennedy Center recital, where Myra Huang and I brought our Fellow Citizens program to Washington, D.C. It’s a program that meditates on American identity, migration, and belonging, and performing it at the Kennedy Center in this fraught moment in the institution’s history felt especially significant. Sharing that evening with the audience there was a powerful reminder of how song can open up space for reflection and conversation, even in this terrifying and speech-freezing political moment. You can read the program note I wrote for the performance here.
Myra and I have big plans for Fellow Citizens in the upcoming American semiquincentennial year. In addition to more performances around the U.S., next year will see the premiere of a brand-new song cycle commissioned for the program. We’ll also be releasing an album of Fellow Citizens later in the year. More details about all of this will be announced in the coming months, so stay tuned…
Looking ahead to December, my Messiah-tour takes me to the Cincinnati Symphony this week and the New York Philharmonic next week. After that, I am planning on shutting down and enjoying being home for the holidays in the Bay Area…