Keene Delivers Double Delight
SeeSaw Magazine | Review | Stewart Smith | Grebla’s unashamedly tonal and neo-romantic Sfidare is both accessible and meaningful. The work is bookended by Grebla’s best music: a deliberate channelling of the opening gesture of Tchaikovsky’s Serenade for Strings, dissolving into music of great depth and beauty.
Zodiac Virtual Festival 2020
Delighted to be invited to record a short video and share the 2018 performance of Sfidare as part of Zodia’s 2020 Virtual Festival.
Alba 2020 Virtual Music Festival
The ALBA festival was due to proceed in person in Italy in late May this year, though due to COVID-19, plans the festival shifted online. I was glad to participate virtually by way of a seminar chaired by Prof. Elliott McKinley. The seminar was streamed directly from the ALBA website during the festival, though a record was uploaded to YouTube some days later which can be found below.
COVID-19 Interruption to Season
My 2020 season had some wonderful firsts planned, including my Italian Debut with the Borromeo String Quartet at Alba Music Festival, my Lincoln Centre Debut with a work for viola & cello with Rae Gallimore at Lincoln Centre, a work for solo harp for Melanie Genin at Roulette Brooklyn and more, but as is the case for many, the realities of Covid-19 not just in New York, but globally have meant those plans have had to change. As disappointing as it might be, changing those plans is a very small price to pay for the health and wellbeing of our community.
In this very difficult time, now more than ever, I believe the artist plays a critical role in inspiring resilience, unity and hope in the face of otherwise incomprehensible tragedies and disruption in our lives. To help rationalise this stark reminder of the fragility of our existence and our mortality.
It may be some time before the concert halls and public spaces open up as they once were, but I can assure you the music will not stop. Despite disruption to this year’s season proceeding as planned, I am hard at work on a series of new and innovative projects that will continue to reach people despite the restrictions of Covid-19. [YOUR SUPPORT]I look forward to announcing more details soon, in the meantime please join my newsletter to keep up to date with the latest developments.
Thank you to everyone who has reached out with your concern and wishes. Despite not having seen anyone for a very long while, I grateful to be safe and healthy! I am forever thankful to this great City of New York and all of its essential workers for keeping me safe and healthy through this crisis. This is a remarkable city with a resilient people. I am proud to call myself a “New Yorker” and in the words of our Governor, as New Yorkers, we will get through this, because we are “New York Tough”.