My time at Civitella was one of reflection and new beginnings, facilitated by long walks in the beautiful country-side, stimulating excursions to see artwork in local hill towns, and inspiring presentations by and conversations with the other Fellows.

I re-orchestrated and revised two recent major works for new ensembles that will be performed this coming year: Homogenous Infiltration for Improvising Pianist, Chamber Ensemble and Fixed Media, and To Fit Our Real Better (for Muhal Richard Abrams), thus furthering my thinking about new directions in my work: adding electronic and fixed media elements to acoustic ensembles comprised of both contemporary classical players and improvisers.

I immensely enjoyed the gift of having time to play the piano every day, not just to practice, but for pure pleasure.  Through this, I discovered and developed several new techniques and began a set of solo piano compositions.

I made significant progress designing a new course on the role of improvisation across disciplines to teach at UC Berkeley in spring 2020, conversations with Fellows about their own experiences with improvisation were immensely insightful to this end.