Walk with us Around the Lakes

You talked a little bit about your trajectory going to Notre Dame.

I think we both were extremely impacted by all the faculty there.

I mean, all the faculty that we had were astonishingly brilliant, extremely successful.

and actually were really impacting personally too, and they took an interest in us individually.

But one stands out from the group, and she was our mentor, Carmen Helena Taiz.

A Venezuelan powerhouse in music.

And the arts in general.

Yeah.

I mean, you just told me today that she was an artist.

And I never saw her art.

I didn't either.

She was very private about it.

But she's not in the room with us today.

She's recently passed.

How were you impacted by Carmen?

Oh, Carmen.

Carmen was such a, you know, looking back, I think for both of us, a maternal figure as well as a professor.

And I lost my mom in 2009, so there's always kind of been a... a hole there and it wasn't that i was in any way looking to have that replaced but she just had such a nurturing spirit but i think possibly the most comprehensive musician i've ever encountered really somebody that could sit across from you having coffee and could equally talk about a Beethoven piano sonata, a Mahler symphony, a Penderecki string quartet, a Stravinsky opera, a Ligeti choral work, and not just talk about them, but opened them up to you in a way that you felt like she understood them so deeply.

And really inspired me to be her whole thing was the interdisciplinary artist.

And I guess I'm still a little Traditional may not be the right word.

I haven't crossed over into really doing an interdisciplinary project.

But her constant search for truth and new musical ideas really transformed the way that I teach.

I feel...

I want to be an artist that's constantly learning.

And I think one of the most transformative conversations I ever had with her, it was our first year.