As founder of We ArtPlay, I believe the arts empower us to be playful, to build creative skills, and to connect with our communities. As a lifelong musician, I've too often found that music education programs are entirely focused on performing reproductions of other people's music. I believe we all have music inside of us, and it is We ArtPlay's mission to bring your art to life alongside a community of learners who joyfully create together. My musical studies began with classical piano, which I practiced throughout my elementary and middle school years. I soon found that I preferred composing and improvising original music rather than trying to perfect Beethoven and Mozart, so I shifted my focus to jazz. It was love at first sight... by my junior year of high school I was performing professionally 3-4 times a week, and went on to complete a bachelors of music in jazz piano at Northwestern University's Bienen School of Music. Since then I've held a variety of positions directing middle and high school ensembles, music literacy courses, improvisation workshops, and group piano programs both in-person and online. I also served as a teaching assistant at the University of Illinois in their ethnomusicology department, and was a faculty member at the Levine School of Music. I have performed with dozens of bands in a wide variety of genres including jazz, classical, rock, musicals, pop, hip-hop, folk, blues, salsa, reggae, Balkan, electronic, R&B, Indonesian gamelan, West African, and Afro-Cuban musical styles. I currently primarily perform with Brotherband, a collective of DC-based musical artists who collaboratively create original and improvised music.