Second installment of our new series, featuring music of Claude Debussy:

1. "Pagodas" from Estampes, L. 100 performed LIVE by Jani Parsons

2. "Clair de Lune" from Suite Bergamasque performed by Amy Gustafson

3. "Beau Soir" transcribed and performed by Merideth Hite Estevez, oboe and Jani Parsons, piano

While you listen:

• What stifles your artistic practice?

• What spoken or unspoken laws are you adhering to in your creative work?

• What would it be like to let joy be the rule or theory that guides you?

• Take a moment to brainstorm some ways you might practice courage, compassion, and connection this week, around any shame you may feel about your worthiness.

About the performers:

Jani Parsons is an award-winning Canadian pianist and teacher, exploring diverse interests in performance, pedagogy, theory, and new music performance. Previous concerts include appearances at the Chan Centre for the Arts, Banff Centre for the Arts, the Ravinia Festival, MASS MoCA, Constellation, the Museum of Contemporary Art (Chicago) and the Detroit Institute for the Arts. In addition to her work as pianist and artistic director with Latitude 49, Jani is an active collaborator, having performed with members of Bang On A Can All-stars, New Music Detroit, Eighth Blackbird, Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble, Fifth House Ensemble, and members of the Detroit and Chicago Symphony Orchestras. Jani has appeared in educational residencies at the New England Conservatory, University of Minnesota, Indiana University, Northwestern University and University of Southern Mississippi, and has served as faculty at the Fresh Inc festival and Interlochen Summer Arts Camp. She can be heard on the Tzadik label and Çedille Records and has been broadcast as soloist and collaborator on CBC Radio 2 and Wfmt. Jani is a graduate of the University of Michigan (MM and DMA in Piano Performance and Pedagogy), the Vancouver Academy of Music (BM), and the Royal Conservatory of Music (ARCT). Her esteemed teachers include Dr. Arthur Greene, Dr. John Ellis, Prof. Christopher Harding, Lorraine Ambrose, and Allen Reiser. A passionate teacher herself, Jani serves on the piano faculty at University of Calgary (Canada) as Assistant Professor and Head of the Piano Program. Jani is generously sponsored by the Canada Council for the Arts and is a Hambidge Scholar.

Praised for her “exquisite sensitivity” and a “style filled with class and elegance” by La Voz de Asturias (Asturias, Spain) and recognized as a “talented player who doesn’t fit the cookie-cutter mold” by Lucid Culture (New York City), American pianist Amy E. Gustafson has performed across the United States and in both Western and Eastern Europe. Her debut album, Reverie, consists of music by Claude Debussy and was released in June 2017. Recent performances include replacing legendary pianist Abbey Simon in Los Angeles at LACMA’s series, Sundays Live, an appearance with the Sofia Sinfionetta in Sofia, Bulgaria, and a concert tour in Dallas, Texas with her piano duo, Duo Azul. Other recent engagements have taken her to Spain, China, and Canada, and she has also performed New York City venues, such as Weill Recital Hall of Carnegie Hall, Steinway Hall, Trinity Church Wall Street, the Tenri Cultural Institute, CAMI Hall and the Kosciuszko Foundation.

Born into a musical family, her talent was evident at an early age, and she received much of her beginning piano instruction from her grandmother. By the age of 15, she had won several local competitions, including MTNA’s Baldwin Competition, and her success led her to move to New York City to continue her studies. Since then, Gustafson has won numerous awards, including the second prize in the International Young Artists Piano Competition, second prize in the Joyce Dutka Arts Foundation Competition, and the Special Presentation Award and the Alumni Award from Artists International Presentations, Inc. Gustafson completed her studies at the Manhattan School of Music, New York University, and the University of Texas at Austin. Her major teachers have included Julian Martin, Andre-Michel Schub, Anton Nel, Constance Keene, and Miyoko Lotto, and she has benefited from the advice of many renowned pedagogues, including Solomon Mikowsky, Arie Vardi, Veda Kaplinsky, Robert McDonald, Paul Badura-Skoda, Marc Durand, Martin Canin, Leslie Howard, and Luiz de Moura Castro. In addition to her performing career, Gustafson is on the piano faculty at Millersville University and is Director and Faculty of the Gijón International Piano Festival in Gijón, Spain, as well as Director of the Palmetto International Piano Festival in South Carolina. Previously, Dr. Gustafson directed The Stony Brook International Piano Festival in Stony Brook, New York. Amy E. Gustafson is a Yamaha Artist.

Praised by American Record Guide as “Luminous sound and gorgeous phrasing…remarkable…exquisite,” oboist Merideth Hite Estevez is an active freelancer and sought-after recitalist. She has performed and taught throughout North and South America, Asia, and Europe. Orchestrally, she is currently the English hornist for the Chamber Orchestra of NY, and has also performed with PhillyPOPS, OperaDelaware, Metropolitan Opera (NYC), American Symphony (NYC) as well as innovative shows with cutting-edge groups like Experiential Orchestra (NYC). Her education has taken her all over the world—Cincinnati Conservatory of Music, Yale School of Music, Fulbright Scholar to Germany, and to The Juilliard School where she received for her doctorate in oboe.

A passionate teaching artist, Merideth loves taking her oboe everywhere she goes in hopes of making music accessible to all types of audiences. She has completed teaching artist training over three summers at Lincoln Center Education in NYC and has also received instruction in their groundbreaking Aesthetic Education curriculum. She has worked in classrooms all over Delaware and provided professional development opportunities for teachers in school districts throughout the state as a teaching artist for Delaware Institute for Arts in Education (DIAE).

As founder and director of Lumina Arts Incubator in 2017, Merideth invites artists into community to debunk the stereotype of the tortured artist, to unleash joy in the creation of art in all disciplines, and to consider creativity as a spiritual practice. Her podcast, Artists for Joy, has been downloaded over 20k times since its inception in 2020 and was a finalist in the 2020 Podcast Awards. She is a certified Start with Heart Facilitator through Graydin, has received multiple coaching certificates, and coaches one-on-one helping artists of all disciplines build a creative life that sings.

Merideth has also held positions at numerous universities and schools of music, including University of Delaware School of Music, University of North Carolina School of the Arts (Winston Salem), The University of Southern Mississippi (Hattiesburg), and Music Institute of Chicago, while she was in residence with Fifth House Ensemble, an innovative ten-piece chamber ensemble in Chicago. Before Chicago, she resided in New York City where she appeared with the Metropolitan Opera, American Symphony Orchestra, and Orchestra of St. Luke’s as an active freelancer.

When she’s not playing oboe or making reeds, Merideth enjoys traveling the world and attempting to speak foreign languages with a southern accent. She hails from Abbeville, SC, but now lives in Bloomfield Hills, MI, where she resides with her husband, Rev. Edwin Estevez, their 4 year-old daughter Eva, and new addition, Baby Eli.