- Thank you, I'm excited.

How you doing?

- Good, how you been doing?

- Good to see you, yeah.

I'm born and raised in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

I guess, I got started with my journey in music kind of early on with the afterschool program.

I didn't really ask for the cello, honestly.

I wanted to play the bass, but when I got to MYSO, the program, Milwaukee Youth Symphony Orchestra, they didn't have any, electric bass is what I thought I was getting into.

They only had upright basses and I got there and I was like, "What is this?"

(gentle upbeat cello music) I was classically trained from eight years old all the way up into college.

I knew when I was younger that I wanted to incorporate different styles of music I love.

I love R&B, I love hip-hop, I love gospel music.

I love classical music.

(gentle upbeat cello music) I just kind of wanted my sound from the cello to embody all my interests.

I knew that I kind of wanted to just switch it up a little bit from the more contemporary or classical kind of pieces that we hear from day to day.

I just wanted to kind of create my own stamp on the world through music, and I'm able to do that with the use of my looper and speakers and all kind of cool stuff.

There's kind of two sides to me, the classical side and then the more, you know, electronic kind of modern kind of leaning sound, so.

(gentle upbeat cello music) Having a classical foundation tremendously helps with just, you know, feeling songs and understanding chords and structure.

I would say, from that standpoint, it's been really great.

Personally, I love the more modern, you know, vibey kind of songs.

I knew I wanted to play kind of different types of music on the cello, so I just kind of incorporated my own style and just ran with that.

The sound that I make from my cello, I would label it as, like, dream strings.

Like, it sounds like you're dreaming, you know, very luscious, kind of like you're floating.

(gentle upbeat cello music) I want people listening to feel joy.

I want them to feel happiness, I want them to be relaxed.

I want them to just feel any kind of emotion, like, I want them to just listen and just have a good time and imagine themselves floating or in the cloud or, you know, something like that.

So, yeah, just, basically, happiness, relaxation, innovation.

Those are all kind of things that I feel like an audience can take from my cello playing.

(gentle upbeat cello music)