Myself and Juno Award-winning producer, jazz bassist, and composer Rick Kilburn are currently deep in the process of recording my first album. I’m so grateful to be working with Rick, who has become both a friend and mentor.

For the past 15 years, I’ve been writing music non-stop, and I can’t wait to share it now that I feel ready. The debut album will be a multi-tracked project featuring my singing, saxophone, piano, and flute, along with my compositions, arrangements, and lyrics. Rick will be featured on bass.

I never imagined being a multi-instrumentalist when I started as just a saxophone player. For the first eight years of my musical training, I was obsessed with ’50s and ’60s jazz and stubbornly refused to listen to much else. Over time, I realized that expanding my musicianship—learning new skills and sounds—is the only way to tell stories authentically. You can’t control everything about your sound, and you shouldn’t try; some of what you become… it just is.

I’ve taken the time to examine my motives and my mission as an artist while learning to wield the magic of music through traditions, rituals, and the guidance of many mentors. Music has always been the facilitator of my emotions—the bringer of joy, sorrow, excitement, grief, contentedness, love. Through music, I’ve discovered that no feeling is too great to face, and even the hardest experiences can be held and understood in time.

Through painstaking practice and ongoing healing, life has become an ever-expanding journey, limited only by imagination. Through Kenton’s Lesson Studio, I share what I’ve learned with the next generation, and I am endlessly inspired by my students.

I’m especially excited to release this album because it includes my own original lyrics, written and developed over formative years—from saxophone lessons in elementary school, to high school festivals, to a chaotic and eye-opening college experience, to COVID times and recovery from trauma. These songs reflect how I coped, grew, and changed.

Lyrics are deeply important to me. Beyond their personal significance, they give music a social and cultural presence. Many jazz standards and folk songs, though well-known to some, are completely unknown to others, and singing them is a way to keep these stories alive and pass them on to future generations.