Hi, my name is Christina. I am a rising junior in high school and an avid music enthusiast. In particular, from a young age, I engaged myself with classical music and eventually started taking piano lessons during elementary school. From the beginning, I was very curious about the history of classical music. I knew it would be helpful to understand what the composers had in mind as they created their art. Otherwise, I felt like my playing was ingenuine and not truly appreciative of the meaning behind each piece. 

My particular appreciation and enjoyment of works from the Impressionist era eventually led me to discover the relevance of the jazz genre in the classical world. I discovered that composers like Ravel and Shostakovich were influenced and appreciative of jazz, and I decided to delve into the genre myself. I learned that jazz encompasses a huge number of subgenres and that often, naming categorizing pieces by subgenre can be very limiting.

Personally, I really love the music of Yusef Lateef and especially his album “Eastern Sounds,” where he incorporated eastern sounds into his work.