Inspiration as a musician: Have a shared emotional experience with the audience! Being fully immersed in the music and getting the chance to share your thoughts and emotions is very rewarding.

Favorite orchestral work: Not a favorite, but there are many crushes! I almost always develop strong feelings for whatever piece we’re performing.

Current playlist: A mix of a few different genres. It depends on what I’m doing— the music I have for reading, working out, and walking to work are all different. The music I’m listening to changes how I perceive the world around me, so it’s fun to be able to cater what I listen to toward the activity I’m doing.

Favorite food: Japanese and Indian food are two of my favorite cuisines.

Activities/organizations: I teach at CCM and spend a lot of my other time practicing.

Fun fact: My mom was a ballerina and my father an opera singer.

How can the Orchestra make the world a better place? Listening to and performing music are two very easy ways to have a shared emotional experience. The things in life that feel the most worthwhile are shared with others. It’s why it doesn’t matter what you’re doing, but who you are doing it with. An orchestra can provide a venue for people connecting and feeling emotions together, making it very rewarding for the audience and performers. Hopefully we can bring these ideas out into the non-musical world and be more open to sharing ourselves with others, thereby becoming more empathetic and better listeners. Maybe this wouldn’t fix anything in the world, but at least we’d be able to better communicate with each other.