ART, FAITH, & THE YEAR TO COME

As we pass through the gates between 2025 and 2026, I know many of us are eager to bid adieu to this past year. It has been a bewildering maelstrom—one in which the transformation of the world as we have known it seems to have accelerated at warp speed. Personally, as I’ve shared in recent writings and on social media, this year has felt especially blurry, navigated through the fog of grief as I marked my first year without my parents.

And yet there have been so many genuine highs in my artistic life over the past twelve months. I’m still absorbing the surreal joy of winning my first Grammy Award; making important debuts in Lisbon and Rome; sharing two world premieres; offering recitals at Wigmore Hall and the Kennedy Center; and returning to beloved institutions and collaborators such as the Seattle and Cincinnati Symphonies, the New York Philharmonic, Tanglewood Music Festival, and Palaver Strings. I was also deeply grateful to release two recording projects that are especially close to my heart.

Threaded through all of this were profoundly healing moments. Times when music and text brought me uncomfortably close to grief hovering just beneath the surface, and I was held there by the care and generosity of friends and colleagues who allowed me space to pause, to cry, and to gather myself. Taken together, these artistic and personal moments made my own 2025 a strangely banner year, even as the relentless news cycle has so often made it feel as though the world is unraveling around us.

backstage at the New York Philharmonic just before performing Handel’s Messiah with Kevin Deas, bass; Jane Glover, conductor; Amanda Forsythe, soprano; John Holiday, countertenor | Photo credit: Chris Lee

As I look ahead to 2026—at a moment when it can feel as though democratic institutions are under profound strain, just as we approach the 250th anniversary of the United States—two themes are emerging clearly in my work. The first is a continued engagement with the music of Johann Sebastian Bach and his contemporaries, using it as a lens through which to meditate on how we keep the faith and sustain hope in dark and tumultuous times. The second is an exploration, through the art of song, of the artist’s role in society today.

These ideas will take shape through new episodes of BACH 52, concert programs inspired by that project in New York City and Santa Fe, and the release of two civically minded albums in 2026 (more details to come). Live performances of those programs will follow, with announcements later this spring.

In a moment when despair can feel like the easiest response, it feels vital to resist it. My hope is to take action through art. To use it as a means of reflection, connection, and bridge-building, and to help keep a flame of hope alive as we wander through the darker stretches of our shared landscape.

Thank you, as always, for reading, listening, and walking alongside me. I’m deeply grateful for your presence, and I look forward to sharing what’s ahead…

Performing Handel’s Messiah with Jane Glover and the New York Philharmonic

Photo credit: Chris Less