Future Classic Women Awards – Danaë Xanthe Vlasse, Mythologies

Hello and welcome to Future Classic Women Awards with me, Stefania Passamonte, on Women's Radio Station, the program where we search for the most amazing new female artists on the classical panorama. Today on Future Classic Women Awards, we will be talking to composer Danèk Sante-Vlasé. She's a Grammy winner composer, teacher, and director of Music Vision Studios. Hello, Danèk. Hello, Stefania. Thank you so much for having me. You're very welcome. So, uh, Dani is a fellow member of the Recording Academy, and she just won this fantastic, uh, amazing, um, uh, Grammys as Best Classical Solo Vocal Album called Mythologies. So first of all, Dani, um, where are you now? And then tell us everything about going to the Grammys and winning, and, you know, and this incredible album. Oh, thank you. I'm in Los Angeles. I live here. And, uh, this album Mythologies won the Grammys in the 64th Annual Grammys, which was actually one year ago. And they did not do it in Las Vegas— I mean, sorry, in Los Angeles. They did it in Las Vegas last year. So it was a very unique experience, different from the more normal experience of attending the Grammys. And it made it very special to have everyone in vacation mode in Las Vegas. Of course, there was still some pandemic concerns. So the Academy was incredible. They did everything they could to keep everybody safe. Uh, and yet the venue was much more, uh, relaxed about it. So this was at the MGM in Las Vegas. And of course there were many people at the MGM who were not there for the Grammys. So yeah, as a result, I had a really amazing Grammy experience. It was the most unimaginable dream to actually win. And I came home with more than a statuette. I came home with COVID I actually got COVID. Oh no. Yeah, I did. I caught COVID at the Grammys, both my husband and I. Gosh, I hope you got it lightly, you know, because the main problem of the Grammys Yeah, is that not everyone were lucky to get it in a live version. And, um, but you know, it's very worth, I guess, to get it at the Grammys. So I mean, yes, it was— there is one track in particular that, um, you told me about in your beautiful album, uh, that is called Euterpe's Lament, that is— was inspired by the pandemic. So first of all, I would like you to talk about Mythologies and then to talk about this specific, um, track. Of course, yes, I can see the relationship you're, you're getting to because After This Moment was inspired by the pandemic. Well, I knew that I was writing Mythologies for years before I released it. I was already orienting my writing as a composer towards these very traditional sources of inspiration of timeless Greek mythology. And I was writing piano music. I was writing chamber works. Little by little, I knew I was accumulating the content to make a full album. And so my process was about 5 years from start to finish, which is slow in a lot of genres. A lot of artists can release one album per year, but in the classical world, things move more slowly. And I, I felt that it was okay to take my time, and I was busy putting out other albums, by the way, at the same time over the course. So during the years I was writing Mythologies, I was putting out many, many other projects. Mythologies was my 6th solo album, but I'm also associated with about 5 other projects from, um, over the course of the last, let's say, 10 years. So it's been a really busy time for me in the most fulfilling, exciting, sometimes terrifying way. And it's only terrifying when you're just feeling stretched with not enough time to execute what you think you need for the vision. So I'm really trying not to let myself get overwhelmed in future work. As I did with Mythologies, I'm— always planning years ahead for my projects. So let me get to this one particular track that you mentioned. It's the fifth track on the album. Eftirpi's Lament was indeed inspired by the pandemic. It was the last track written for this album. I knew I needed one more, and the pandemic came and it changed the world. And my thought was, as we saw all the concert halls closing and we saw the museums and art art galleries closing, and we saw everybody staying home, afraid to engage with other people. This was particularly difficult for artists, maybe less so for composers, because frankly, a composer such as myself relishes the opportunity to have a lot of quiet time to create. Oh yeah. But at some point, at some point, you really want that work to reach the world. And that's why it was so hard for performing artists during that time, because performing artists really derive a great sense of identity and purpose, not just financial stability, from performance. So for a whole segment of the population, it was not just about losing income, it was about not having an identity and not having an outlet. And I kept looking around at all my friends, seeing so much sadness, seeing so much sense of grief and inability to do anything. As much as we were all able to celebrate, as we justifiably should, the medical profession and science that really had an opportunity to shine during the pandemic, there were many people who felt completely discarded and helpless as society forced them out. And I couldn't help but imagine from the ancient Greek perspective what that would look like for Euterpe. And Euterpe is the muse of music. She was one of the muses and a daughter of the god Zeus. So for me, this was a piece that, that tried to link the old and the new, that tried to look at the modern world and the current tragedy of the pandemic through the lens of a mythical being, as I suppose a deity from ancient Greek mythology, and how difficult it must be for someone, a muse like this, whose responsibility it is to safeguard the cultural elements of history and all the arts, how difficult it would be for Eftterpi to experience the pandemic. And I thought it was a way of looking at the world through the same perspective that all my friends were struggling. Beautiful. So this piece is— yes, this piece is borrowing text from a wonderful cellist who lives here in Los Angeles, a friend of mine called Cecilia Tsan. And she wrote a very long open letter to her daughter and her loved ones because they had to be very far away from each other. There was a continent and an ocean separating them. And I took segments of this text as the source inspiration for the lyrics of this song. And I felt that there was no better way to honor that moment in history than to use contemporary text. By— rarity is for me to use text that's not from me. So when I do that, it's very purposeful. Wonderful. Let's listen then, Euterpes' lament inspired by the pandemic from Mythologies album by Danne Xante Blasse. Depends on my love, my love for you. Carnival! Spiritual glory soothes my aching soul. There's mercy unprecedented and unmeasurable. And this was Euterpes' lament from the Mythologies album by composer Dane Xante Blase. Dane, this was absolutely fantastic. Now I have a very big question about the fact that you said that this was the last track that you composed for this album, but actually in the album this is number 5. Now here in the UK, just in the past 3 years, we've launched a National Album Day. So I'm part of the British Phonographic Industry. I'm one of the council members. And this was something that we wanted to put out as a celebratory day for the effort that an artist put into making an album. Because in an era where everyone is listening music on demand on streaming platform, rarely you get someone that is actually playing an album from track 1 to the last track in the order of the artist as it was put out with the intention. So what's your point of view on the importance of listening a full album in the order that you have decided, like in this case putting distracts number 5 instead of being the last one as it was in a chronological time of composing it? What a beautiful question, and what an incredible idea to do a National Album Day. I would love that to happen, for that to be the case. Yeah, you're correct, it's a very important question for artists when we organize entire albums. We're putting together a huge scope of project. I think perhaps for the layperson A parallel could be to understand the difference between writing a novel or writing a single short chapter from a book. And when you organize the chapters in order, it has to be purposeful in some fashion, either because there's a narrative and story needs to unfold, or because you're making maybe different points across different subjects, and then there's some reason why you present the subjects in that order. And that's the reason that we work in a certain when we coordinate an entire album around a certain number of tracks and order them. Now, compositionally, there are also reasons to look at key relationships or looking for an emotional arc in the way that the music is presented. For example, I will exaggerate, but if I had only— let's say I have all my pieces are exactly the same from beginning to end structurally. Let's say that they all have the same tempo, they all have exactly the same instrumentation. Then you would look at the album in terms of maybe key relationships and narrative. But the other really big element is in fact mood, energy. And you want to make sure that you're not exhausting your listener with all the fast tracks or all the slow tracks all grouped together, or if you do that, there better be a purpose. So we're also looking very much the same way we would look at programming a concert. We consider a contrast, an ebb and flow of emotional experience for the listener. So sometimes you're locked in for different reasons to a specific order, but I think it's very much a question of programming to give the experience for a listener to have variety without getting saturated. So these are important elements. And of course, I'm thinking in these terms for my next album already. I already have the entire map of how things will be ordered even as I'm writing the music. Wonderful. Yeah, absolutely. Well, you said it right. I mean, is you're bringing the audience into a journey, and each album is a different journey. And in this case, this is a journey about the mythologies, the Greek mythologies. So, um, we're not gonna— we unfortunately, we don't have the space to listen to the entire album, but we definitely recommend everyone to go and find Mythologies by, uh, Danik Santevlase because it's absolutely phenomenal. So in this case, I would like to talk about the third track, Penelope. So, um, it follows the track about, um, Odysseus and And you said there is a specific story behind it, and that is actually somehow is the main image of the whole album that is talking about the Greek mythologies. That's right. So this story is very dear to my heart because I'm the daughter of a Greek immigrant to America. My father was born on the island of Ithaca in Greece. And that is the island believed to have been the island of King Odysseus, who is the hero of Homer's Odyssey. And while so much of mythology is truly myth, it is, it is fantasy. It is a fairy tale. In the case of King Odysseus and his queen Penelope, these were historical figures who actually lived, and there are ruins of of palaces that are ascribed to that era and believed to have been in, in the possession of King Odysseus. And we're looking at a whole historical relationship to, you know, a past that actually influences all of Western culture today. The, the foundation of what we value as a society today, how we structure our world in a democratic way is built on what the ancient Greek culture created. That was the foundation of everything we do and, and, and seek to achieve in this world. So then we get to the actual story of King Odysseus. Readers may know that in Homer's Odyssey, this hero had been gone to fight the Trojan Wars for 10 years, and then he turned towards home with his fleet of ships and his men at the end of these Trojan Wars, for which he was honored greatly because he played a large part. The whole Trojan horse idea was, was his. And so he turned towards home as a very celebrated war hero, but then he disappeared on the seas. And the Mediterranean has a way of doing this. It does these very unpredictable, localized, violent storms. And he was believed to have drowned. And for years and years, there were occasional accounts of a man and a certain tale, a story. Something would emerge, and, and whispers would return to Queen Penelope waiting for her king but there was no certainty that he had survived and that he was coming home. And his last sighting after the Trojan Wars was 10 years before he finally did return home. And it's important to think about what it must have been like for a queen in this world to suddenly have to rule, never knowing day to day whether she's a wife or a widow. Unsure whether to mourn or keep hoping. And there are accounts which I think are very historically based in Homer's Odyssey. There are accounts of her struggle and her, her desire for, for certainty. And she was very wise and very patient and very cunning, very intelligent. She was considered the you know, the epitome of female ideals in her day. It was not enough to be beautiful, you had to be intelligent and cunning and kind, and a queen was expected to be able to rule her island as she did in the absence of her husband. But as the years wore on, she had immense pressure to remarry because it was assumed that her husband was dead, and The island was falling into disrepair and she was surrounded by suitors, and here we see her intelligence coming through. She would use not physical strength, because that was how a man would exist in the world, she used intellectual and cultural cunning to work with the societal expectations of her day to control the situation. So she did not turn away the suitors because that would have been rude as a hostess. She was probably also hedging her bets in case there was confirmation of Odysseus's death. And she ruled her island knowing that there was this pressure to remarry, so she didn't resist it. She said, yes, I will remarry, but she had the prerogative to choose when and how. So she made impossible tasks for the suitors to prove themselves. She would say, well, a suitor must have the strength and fortitude of my husband or he's not worthy of me. And she would say, I have the responsibility socially to see my father-in-law, Odysseus's father. I have my— this responsibility to see him in a respectful way to his grave, and he's still alive. 'And while he lives, I'm going to be weaving a tapestry, a burial shroud for him.' Again, she's weighing on social convention to buy time, and she says, 'I will choose a suitor and select a husband when I have finished this weaving of this tapestry.' So of course she weaves slowly and meticulously. It was a very honorable craft in her day which only the most educated high-class ladies were taught. It was not basic weaving, this is really intricate work, and so people could understand that it should take years. And moreover, she had this ploy in which at night, in the secrecy and darkness of night, she would try to unravel as much as she could get away with. So she was buying time this way, and historians believe she managed something around 3.5 years of delay. This way. It was significant. And she would also, as I said, she would test the strength of the suitors by saying, well, if you want to be worthy of me, my husband in his prime, he could string this bow and fire arrows from this bow through 12 axe heads. And what does that mean in common language in today's world? Well, the hunting bows of the time, or at least certainly the one that Odysseus had, was exceptionally difficult to bend in order to attach the string. You wouldn't leave it strung because it would artificially stretch the gut string and therefore it would— wouldn't work. So you had to keep the bow unstrung until you needed it to hunt or to fire it. But apparently bending this bow into form to attach the the string took incredible strength, and she knew that even if she found a guy who knew how to do it, who figured out how to do it, in all probability he would not also have the incredible aim that her husband was renowned for. So it was a two-part test: do you have the strength, and then do you have the accuracy? 12 times you have to send an arrow through an axe head. And what an axe head means is the axe head is the part of the handle that has an open V-shape where you would secure the blade. So then you would put it, you know, you would attach a blade in the open V of the wooden handle, and then you would have an axe. Well, you remove the blade, you have just that V shape. It's perhaps an inch or two across. You can imagine the precision it would take to send an arrow through that space at a certain distance 12 times. You have to be able to shoot an arrow with precision 12 times. So she had all these wonderful impossible tasks And I want to honor her in this piece by telling her story and highlighting her patience, her faith. The goddess Athena gave her great faith and wisdom and strength to survive these 10 years of trying to rule solo. And she was raising her son, their son Telemach, their young son who was born just before Odysseus left for the war, had become a fully fledged young man. But did not have the authority to rule. It was still his mother's throne. So she was protecting him because he was potentially also, you know, being threatened by the suitors. Yeah. She had enormous responsibilities, and I wanted this piece to honor her and her patience, a woman who waited 20 years for her man to come home. So let's listen to Penelope from Mythologies album by composer Grammy-winning composer Poser, Tanek Santevlace. With thee, and then alone, and then alone with thee, and then alone. And this was the beautiful Penelope from Mythologies, the best classical solo vocal album from Grammys 64, and by our guest of Future Classic Women Awards, Danne Xante Blase. Danne, um, so your album, it's full of fantastic collaborations, and, um, uh, you know, these are things that you've been developing with the years. So tell us a little bit how it is to be a composer in Los Angeles and working with other Grammy winners, artists. Did you ever dream you would become a composer when you were a child? And that one day you would be actually collaborating with all these fantastic artists in, uh, in Los Angeles? I did not have this vision as a child. I studied the piano, I was classically trained, I did my degrees in piano performance, I was focused on becoming a teacher, and increasingly as I played, I found myself wanting to write. And it took me years to really connect to that intention in a way that I took seriously enough to really pursue it. Because while I was in a performance degree, as you can imagine, I was practicing a lot, and there just wasn't much time for composition. And really only after I finished that, I had written several works by the time I finished my— by my mid-20s, really, I had written some pieces, but I did not consider myself a composer. I was, I was experimenting, I was doing things for fun in free time. And it took me almost another 10 years to really embrace becoming a composer. Obviously winning a Grammy makes a huge difference. And over those 10 years, as I gradually found artists that I respected immensely who wanted to perform my music that gave me the courage to say, ah, maybe there's something here that's not just for my own creative joy. Maybe it can also be appreciated by others. And I really credit the amazing artists who've been part of this journey. They're not all on this album. I've had wonderful people in my path who've been on previous recordings with me. Including Misha Lefkovitz, wonderful violinist of the LA Philharmonic. And particularly in mythologies, I want to acknowledge Hila Plitman and Sangeeta Kaur. Both of these sopranos are ladies I met in 2017, and they have changed my life. They really have become muses and best friends, an endless source of inspiration. And moreover, they have helped me find a vision for myself for the future that's really built on how they see me. And so there's a lot to be said for the value of friendship and elevating people around you, because you can really change a person's path by believing in them and showing them not just that you're a kind, supporting friend, but that as a colleague you're willing to invest and align yourself professionally with the budding composer. And of course, I must add many names to this. So at least I can mention those that you have just heard in Eftcherpy's Lament. Of course, there were sopranists, Hila Plitman and Sangeeta Kaur. On viola, there was Virginie Davosak de Castérat. On cello, Eru Matsumoto. And for that track, I played the piano. And then in Penelope, I also played— you hear both sopranos again, and the flute is played by Wouter Kellerman, who's a wonderful friend in our Grammy community who's been just a gem and generous. And all these artists are so kind. They are talented and a joy to work with, and it simply makes the creative process an ebullient one. Absolutely. Well, then I'd like to ask you something else then. Would you, you know, you said you started as a pianist and then by personal drive somehow composition came to you, right? But do you still like to play classical piano in the sense of playing Chopin, Mozart, Beethoven? And if So which— what is your favorite go-to, you know, composition? Oh, it depends on my mood, but I'm a romantic at heart, so I'm always going to gravitate towards Chopin, of course, and frankly, Rachmaninoff. Right now, I've been through a phase, a few years of just being so obsessed with Rachmaninoff. Ah, I agree. Although I have to say, Sometimes when I was teaching, when I was younger and I had, you know, students and learning with me, Bach was something that I rediscovered. Playing it for competition, for example, that was driving me crazy because it was so complicated. You were so exposed, you risked to, yes, you know, to have any lack of memory in the fugue or whatever. But teaching it, I discovered so much depth into it, and it made me go— wanted to go back to play more Bach, for example. Yes, as a composer, I have so much admiration for Bach because, as you just described, the complexity of the multi-layered writing, the polyphonic writing, is simply the hardest, and he did it in such an effortless way, and it was so prolific. It's extraordinary. Absolutely. Well, the next piece I would like to listen to before we go to our last session, it's Siren cinematic. So there is the sirens in the Odyssey. I remember very well they were trying to drag Ulysses and any other sailors, you know, away from their journey. We had actually on our previous episodes the guest Luciana Di Bella, who had another very similar um, song dedicated to sirens. So there is this, um, attraction, uh, towards the sirens. Do you have any personal, um, idea why we are so drawn towards the sirens? I mean, the mermaid, in the sense of the mermaid, because that's what— of course, of course. I'm not sure, but it's true that this obsession has gone for millennia. The imagery of women as part fish or part bird has been ingrained in art, in poetry, in literature since at least 2,000 years, and— or even 3,000. You can go back much further. The point is there's something, uh, maybe because let's say that the, the arts are often driven by a masculine perspective on, on what it, what it means to be beautiful, what it means to be dangerous, what it means to be feminine. And there's something about nature and femininity combining in the mermaids that it makes them somehow beautiful and dangerous, because of course mankind up until recently lived entirely at the mercy of nature. I mean, frankly, we still do, we're just more separated from it when we live in cities. But, um, for men especially who lived their lives on the sea that was their greatest probability of death, was the ocean. And when you spend weeks or months at sea without a woman around, maybe the fantasies of a beautiful woman really take over the folklore. And I can only hypothesize. I think that's probably a question for someone who's really a historian or specialized in mythology. Yeah, no, absolutely. I, I didn't think about that, and most probably you might be very close to what a specialist would say. But, you know, it is a very big part of— even if you think about The Little Mermaid that has been made, the story by Andersen, there is this idea, as you said, of the beautiful woman that is dangerous and can draw the man to perils, metaphorically, even in society, if you like. With men losing their head because a woman is so charming. And somehow this women's radio station is something that is very much about, you know, talking from the perspective of women, in this case women in music. So, um, on your point of view, have you ever found— that's a funny question— a man, a man, a mermaid, someone that would draw you to the danger into music? Let's say even just a piece in music that it's so beautiful that you want to play, but you will never master it and will bring you to danger of, you know, failing in performing it, for example. Oh, sure. And perhaps Sirens is that piece for me as a composer. I think it's the most terrifying pianistic work that I've written. Terrifying because it's supposed to be hard. In the place where the story unfolds, with Drowning, it is a mercilessly difficult piano passage with difficult leaps. And yeah, it's a really scary one to do. On the recording for this particular piece, the pianist was Brendan White. And I should add that there was another pianist on this album who played on Nepenthe, which is an instrumental track, piano, violin, cello. And the pianist for that was Robert The violin for that was Lily Hayden, and Arumatsu Mato again on cello. I hope you'll find time to play that one for listeners. It's, it's probably my most— we are, we are instrumental. Oh good, let me come back with that one. Yeah, let me come back to Sirens briefly and tell you I actually did not want to tell the story from Odysseus's perspective, and so this was a very calculated departure from telling stories out of The Odyssey. The reason I did not want to tell that story is because— a lot of people don't know this— the sirens were actually, in Greek mythology, the sirens were cursed. They were, um, they were cursed in that if their songs did not succeed in drowning those who heard them Then the mermaids who had sung had to commit suicide. Ah, and I think it's important. Yeah. And I did not want to tell that tale. I wanted to tell the tale of why they're famous. They're famous for succeeding. Other than a couple of instances in mythology, the mermaids always won. Nobody survives hearing them. So Odysseus was an exception, and I could have told that tale, but to me that was not serving to honor these incredible creatures who were actually, you know, essentially undefeated. And to tell the tale of a cunning man whose story I'm already telling, it's already present in other places in the album, I wanted to explain why they're so merciless. And, and I wanted there to be more of a philosophical perspective on what the mermaids represent in today's world. To me, the mermaids are the embodiment of the ocean, nature's forces. And in a world where the conversation around climate change is, is a daily topic, I think it's important in some way, again, bringing the old into the new, mythology into reality. For me, the mermaids are a representation of these forces that are greater than humans can control. And so in the piece, there are many elements of nature. The piano is the embodiment of the ocean, and there's a very specific pattern of oceanic wave structure in the piano writing. You could even look at the page and see the notes in, in parallel motion moving up and down, both hands creating a waveform on the page. And there's the fog, which is part of the mystery, you know, mysterious aspect of what enshrouds these magnificent mermaids. So the fog sound is this string sweep gesture that's done inside the piano, directly in contact with the strings. If you do a sweeping motion, you get this magnificent, evocative, magical sound that for me is the this fog. And of course, the mermaids are represented in the songs of my two magnificent sopranos, Hila and Sangita. So I have the elements coming together— the fog, the ocean, the mermaids— as a unit. And the audience gets the sailor's perspective. The audience gets the first-person experience of being brought into this space and hearing The— there are two— I will— too many thoughts. I'll do this. I'll say, are you playing track number 7, Sirens Cinematic? Yes. Okay. So because of that, I should mention the percussionist here is Nadim Majalani. And he did several other things which help immerse the listener. There were two versions of Sirens. There was the stripped-down concert simple version, and that's the first track on the album. At the end, we do an extended version of that track with the additional elements, which is why we call it Sirens Cinematic. And there are the sounds of the ocean with an ocean drum, of thunder from a thunder drum, of a glass harp. And for that, it was beautiful. Nadeem had the foresight one rainy day in February to leave his glass glass elements outside so that in the rain of the night, he literally took the rain that fell overnight and recorded that as the glass harp. Wow. And let, basically let fate decide what pitches would come for this recording. We didn't alter anything. We took exactly the pitches that were produced by those glasses. If you've ever run a glass around the rim of a wine glass, and heard those vibrations, that's an example of what Nadeem was doing for this percussion effect. Fantastic. And so we're taking the listeners into this world with as many elements as we can to paint an aural picture the same way you would do a visual image in a film and make it a visceral experience so that they get drawn into the story. They experience the magical fog, they hear the waves in the piano, they hear the siren song, and then hopefully they also feel the boat rocking and things being wrong. And gradually they realize they're stuck in a storm. And then they're thrown overboard. There's this really dramatic crash moment where the ship is— the boat is capsized. And that's a double forearm crash. I would literally crash left forearm and right forearm together on the low end of the keys and create the worst cacophony, right? All right. I don't usually write extreme elements like that. It's, to me, it has to be very careful, planned, purposeful, and part of the storytelling. So I did that here, and I want the audience to experience that. And yes, if you're a pianist and you see this piano part for the panic of drowning, you are literally panicked because it's written such that with the crossing hands It should look like hands thrashing in panic above the waves. Wow. So it's very— listen then. Oh my gosh, let's listen. Sorry, we don't have a video. I would like to watch the video. I'm sure there is a music video. You can— yeah, there's a music video. It's on my website and on YouTube. Go look for it. So let's listen to the radio version then of Sirens, Sirens Cinematic by Janik Sante-Vlasse. Fantastic! This was Siren cinematic by Dan-Exante Vlasa, Grammy winner composer, from her latest album Mythologies that won the 64th Grammy Awards as Best Classical Solo Vocal Album. Now, Dani, we're really at the end, and unfortunately it's gonna be very, very fast, but I would like to, you know, this is the fun part of the interview, so I'll ask you two very short questions. One is, do you have any hobby other than composing and playing the piano for relaxing? I mean, I don't think we can actually ever relax. Posing and playing the piano, but you know, you know what I mean. Do you do anything in particular that is not music or is another type of music? Yes, I do. I have many, many passions. Almost none of them I indulge fully, but it's for a good cause. It's because I prefer to spend my time writing music. So I, I love yoga and hiking and baking. Probably baking is the one I do most. Because that's manageable to fit a quick half hour to bake something rather than a 2-hour commitment to a yoga class. So, um, I do those things. Yeah, it makes me really happy. Beautiful. Oh, I love baking too, and, uh, it takes me longer though, I have to say. So that's what you— I'm making éclairs au chocolat. I'm not making, you know, French pastries, but then I've done it, definitely. Yeah, beautiful. And do you have any funny, uh, you know, anecdote that you can share with us in your life as a composer or as a performer, as a pianist? Yeah, I do. I'll try to tell you this story quickly. I— it was actually one of the first breakthrough moments that was important for me in how I viewed myself as a, as a composer. I had a piece being performed in a concert probably around 2015, and my piece was performed just before intermission. So during intermission, I was surrounded by many people complimenting me on the, on the piece, and it was really wonderful and joyous. But intermission is short, it's 15 minutes. Yeah. So I had a lot of bodies of people wanting to talk to me. I didn't know any of them, and one of them asked me a question, simply asked me a simple question 'Do you write for strings?' And I didn't know enough at the time to realize it was a purposeful question, and I simply answered it in the most innocent, naive way. I said, 'Oh my God, yes, I love strings. I've been thinking I should write something for the cello,' and I went on and on about the cello instead of asking this nice gentleman about him and why he was asking this question. Yeah. And then I returned to sit down because intermission ended, And somebody in the pew of this church behind me tapped me on the shoulder and said, "Oh, wow. I saw Misha Lefkovitz talking to you. Are you going to be writing for him?" And I said, "Wait, who? What are we talking about?" And then I was told, "Ah, well, you know, he's the most senior member of the Los Angeles Philharmonic. He's a wonderful violinist." And I thought, "Oh, no. I'm such an idiot. I only talked about the cello, and he's a violinist, and it did not even occur to me." that his question was purposeful. Yeah, and I felt like such an idiot. And at the end of the concert, thankfully, Misha was extremely— still there and patient. And still there, not only still there, but he came back to me with his business card and said, please email me. And so I got into— wow— okay. And from there, a beautiful friendship and a collaboration emerged. He had me come to his house and we planned an album together. But I really felt like an idiot. I did embarrass myself. I don't know how you managed to play the second part of the concert thinking about that, isn't it? Did you have this thing, this idea going around while you were playing, like, ah? No, thankfully I was not playing in the second half. I was sitting there as an audience member feeling very stupid. Yes. Ah, all right. Well, listen, it was a delight having you as a guest on Future Classic Women Awards. Thank you so much for the great music for the beautiful, you know, chat that we had today. And I would like to tell our audience that if they have any questions that you would like to ask to our guest or nomination for our Future Classic Women Awards, please email me at presenters@womensradiostation or tweet us @womensradiostn. And if you would like to listen to this episode again or catch up on our previous programs, you can head to my presenter's page, Stefania Passamonte, slash Future Classic Women Awards on womensradiostation.com. Thank you so much, Dan, and best of luck with your next album. I can't wait to listen to it. Oh, thank you so much. I'm excited about that too, and hopefully we'll get to talk about that when the time comes. Super. You've been listening to Future Classic Women Awards on Women's Radio Station, live every day at 10 AM and 10 PM London time. Thank you for listening.