I have a weakness for old wooden boxes with strings pulled across them: violin, viola, nyckelharpa, marxophone. (I’m also a sucker for a bass harmonica.) I’ve played violin since I was tiny. At this point it might as well be a part of my body. I also love singing. 

Singing and playing together — that’s my happy place. Writing songs — that’s my creative nirvana. Art songs, rock songs, pop songs, cabaret songs, experimental songs, metal songs, folk songs — they’re all efficient, intimate and dramatic and can break your heart and remake it in 3 minutes flat. 

Improvising, composing, writing, teaching, recording, collaborating — I love all of it with everything I have. They’re different approaches to the same question. Not sure where I’d be without it all, but it wouldn’t be good.

I’ve been turned inside-out by so many different kinds of music that I can’t imagine pledging allegiance to any one way of making music. I’m always working to understand different ways of using sound to move the molecules between humans. I’m not concerned with pinning down a musical identity — Just like your speaking voice: No matter what you’re saying or how you’re saying it, you always sound like you.