Blue Shadows was written on a cold mid-December day, when winter light fades quickly and time seems to slow. Written for flute and piano, it leans into the blues world—intimate, searching, and slightly raw. The flute sings in long lines while the piano answers with warmth and the bass keeps the time ticking away, tracing the quiet ache that often surfaces in winter’s stillness.

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Claire Vazart’s Songes for flute, bass, and piano drifts through a world of jazzy shadows—smokey, dark, and quietly sensual.It unfolds like a late-night confession, its quiet bass line and languid piano licks give the flute space to sing, bend, and sigh. Songes is a reminder that truth often lives in the half-lit places: in desire, in memory, and in the hushed moments where we find the courage to speak, even softly.

Claude Bolling’s Affectueuse floats in a smoky, tender world—sweet, lyrical, and quietly seductive. Performed here as part of The Sound of Hope, my cabaret-style program celebrating resilience, love, and the intimate places where music and identity meet.

Jake Heggie’s Soliloquy for flute and piano is a tender, melancholy ballad—music that seems to breathe with remembrance. Drawn from his oratorio Pieces of 9/11: Memories from Houston, the piece carries a quiet ache, as if holding the weight of stories too fragile to speak aloud. The flute sings with reflective sorrow, while the piano offers a steady pulse of compassion beneath it, creating a space where grief, memory, and hope coexist.

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l’Hiver is a new piece inspired by the Winter Solstice. Scored for flute and harp, the music alternates between major and minor harmonies, capturing winter’s conflicted emotions: joy in the beauty of fresh snow, and a quiet melancholy shaped by darkness. This performance was recorded in my attic, surrounded by objects filled with memory—a music stand given to me by my grandmother, chests made by Russell’s father, a handcrafted 1948 Haynes flute bequeathed to me, and paintings by my grandfather.

Gary Schocker’s Closer sings in colors of jazz and quiet. In this performance, the music unfolds alongside long-forgotten photographs of men touching hands, sharing a kiss, or leaning gently into one another. From the late 1800s through the 1960s — Black couples, young students, soldiers far from home — these images reveal tenderness that once lived in the shadows. Across years when love had to whisper, these men still reached for one another. Their faces tell a truth the world could not silence: Hope will never be silent.

In City Nightingale, Gary Schocker creates vivid images of the city at dusk. Through minor and major seventh harmonies and fluttering, bird-like flute lines, the music evokes the restless energy, quiet moments, and fleeting beauty of urban evenings. This performance is part of my ongoing project Hope Will Never Be Silent, which celebrates the voices and stories of gay, lesbian, and trans composers. Gary Schocker, an openly gay composer, writes with sensitivity, lyricism, and emotional depth, and City Nightingale captures both the intimacy of personal expression and the vibrancy of the world around us.

Claude Bolling’s Sentimentale is shaped by tenderness, longing, and quiet grace. I was drawn to Bolling's music not only for its lyrical beauty, but also for a small coincidence: Claude Bolling shared a surname with my grandmother, who appears in this video with my son. I recorded this performance in my attic, surrounded by objects filled with memory. Paintings by my grandfather, Gifford Hansell, and old photographs