The Talea Ensemble, one of the most exacting and serious new music ensembles in New York, has been bouncing around from venue to venue since pianist-composer Anthony Cheung and percussionist Alex Lipowski founded the group in 2007.

The five solo organ improvisations on her newest record, Nightclouds (Blank Forms Editions), recorded live from 2023 to 2024, feature the most radical dissonances, timbres, and overtones yet in her discography. Arkbro tends toward the cosmic and away from the worldly, and Nightclouds is no exception. But her other new record, How do I know if my cat likes me? (Blank Forms Editions), performed with organist Hampus Lindwall and language artist Hanne Lippard, is seeping with cultural critique—references to call wait times, online banking, fun facts, and ChatGPT, to name a few. Arkbro spoke from Berlin about this contrast and, occupied by her two Sanskrit-named cats, Līla and Nāda, about her search for meaning in an ever-accelerating world.

Few pianists have made such a radical pivot in their repertoire as Awadagin Pratt. In 1992, he won the Naumburg International Piano Competition playing Bach-Busoni, Beethoven, and Liszt. He was the first Black pianist to take home the gold.