Wrestling, an open call, a voicemail poem.

Hi buddies,

It’s July! I hope this finds you dipping in a cool lake or eating a popsicle. It’s a little cooler today than it has been here in Chicago and I’m enjoying having the windows open again.

I am spending a lot of time composing, working on a score for a short film and a saxophone sextet for an ensemble on swan boats. Both are new challenges — very different processes from making an album or performing live — and I’m finding them frustrating and rewarding in equal measure. I’m trying to get better at working a little and then leaving something to marinate, often finding that taking a walk or cooking a meal allows me to return to making from a new perspective.

I’ve been thinking about what a privilege it is to wrestle with something creatively: to find something frustrating and briefly impossible, to have half an idea and not know if it will become a whole one, to stare at the wall until something emerges, or doesn’t. Making art is hard and uncomfortable. It requires you to face yourself, your insecurities and boredoms and gaps in knowledge. It requires you to stretch yourself toward certain imagined situations and people (being a saxophone player, listening across a body of water, etc.) and away from others (an imaginary audience thinking your [my] work is undercooked, boring, overly conceptual, etc. etc.). I’m not positioning myself as a tortured artist — I love what I get to do. And part of that love is that I have to live through it, in all its forms.

OPEN CALL for young and new* string players: Whitney, Macie and I** are excited to make a piece for the 2026 edition of the Sonic Pavilion Festival, which utilizes the unique 24 channel sound system at Jay Pritzker Pavilion to present multichannel sound works. We are collecting recordings of young string players in Chicago, which we will weave into a 15 minute composition.

Submit a recording

Submit a recording here (more info at the link), and please pass on to young string players and string teachers that you know in Chicago!

*open to all ages! Looking at you, adult friends who have bravely started playing recently :)

**A side note about this trio — our record is almost sold out! So, get one if you want one before they’re gone.

a few shows:

7.10 Chicago, IL: Constellation, Bex Burch’s As Yet Untitled
7.16 Kalamazoo, MI: Glow Hall (trio with Whitney Johnson and Macie Stewart)
7.17 Detroit, MI: Concert of Colors (trio with Whitney Johnson and Macie Stewart)
7.31 New York, NY: Judson Memorial Church, Bex Burch’s As Yet Untitled

Save the date for SWANS, an audiovisual collaboration between Jess Bass and I for six swan pedal boats, 12 wing sculptures puppeted by dancers, and 6 saxophonists. SWANS will be premiered in Veterans Park Lagoon in Milwaukee on August 30th, 2026.

tiny recommendations:

1. The Public Domain Image Archive, which is exactly what it sounds like. I recommend searching for something slightly abstract and seeing what you find: gentle, cyan, transform (Animorphs from 1844!).

2. Two new-to-me excellent Chicago restaurants: Lao Der and Anelya.

3. Brief hangs: I’m getting back in the swing of having a social life after touring so much, and remembering that it’s so nice to hang out with a friend for an hour or so. Same goes for ten minute phone calls. I love a four hour dinner or an expansive conversation, but sometimes brief is just as soul-feeding.

   

4. Other slightly random fun internet finds: this literature clock, and (according to the comments), “an excellent use of free will”.

5. This Sheila Heti essay about her computer.

6. The most ridiculous thing I will ever recommend to you: I bought this thermal spring water in a spray bottle at Heathrow and I just love spraying my face with it. On planes, in the current heat, etc.. I know! It’s just water, for $11. Maybe the recommendation is actually: give yourself permission to enjoy something small and silly.

7. Salads for summer: N and I are on a big ol salad kick, having fun with whatever is in our CSA each week. Some favorites are:

   cherry tomatoes + cucumber + feta + greek olives + radicchio + chickpeas

   blueberries + radicchio + walnuts + blue cheese

   kohlrabi (cubes) + pickled beets (thin slice) + shredded cabbage + wild rice

8. Rec League, a pretty charming site for sharing recommendations of all kinds, which I found via evencleveland (Stephanie Madewell, who I’ve been an internet admirer of for many years). There are plenty of book recommendations and Things to Buy, but also things like “reusing a Bonne Maman jam jar for beverages” and “Minnesotans” — the latter obviously sold me.

9. Sit in silence.

Finally, a poem, via voicemail from a wrong number:

That’s all, for now.

Lia