Chloe Flower may be known to over a million followers on social media as the star pianist and composer who accompanied Cardi B at the GRAMMY Awards, who played for the President of the United States at the Kennedy Center Honors, and who frequently posts stunning videos of herself playing pop/classical mashups on Liberace’s mirrored grand piano as the gorgeous New York City skyline frames her in the background.
To many who attended her performance at Millersville University’s Ware Center in downtown Lancaster, PA on October 18, however, Chloe Flower is also a hometown sweetheart and an inspiring local success story in the arts. On Friday, in addition to a hall filled with enthusiastic local fans, Flower’s former music teachers and family members came out in force to support her.
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Flower’s many young admirers in the audience—the next generation of local piano students, from whose ranks Chloe Flower once grew herself—found themselves witnessing a veritable master class in the fruits of working hard, following your dreams, and staying true to what moves you.
Performing her own compositions and productions (such as the vast, cinematic “Flower through Concrete”), masterworks by female composers such as Tania León (the rhythmic, chaotic, and beautiful “Tumbao”), pop covers by songwriting legends such as Joni Mitchell (a sweeping, emotional take on the classic “River”), and innovative mashups of Chopin, Beethoven, and hip-hop beats (“Get What U Get”), Chloe Flower brought a varied and energetic evening of music that ended in a standing ovation.
During intimate moments between songs, Flower paused to talk about her experiences growing up in Central PA, her classical training at London’s Royal Academy of Music and Juilliard, and the many challenges of entering into the world of classical music as a performer and a composer, where she often found herself the only woman in the room.
“Women are so underrepresented in classical music,” the composer has said. “With less than 5% of music performed by major symphony orchestras written by women and less than 1%written by women of color, I am striving to expand the scope and appeal of the genre.”
Flower celebrated the female composers and artists who opened doors for her and explained how she forged a new path as she began to blend genres and develop her own style as a composer. The result of those efforts was clear on Friday night—the audience for Flower’s show boasted an incredibly diverse turnout, demonstrating the broad appeal of her self-invented genre, a mix of pop and classical she calls “popsical.”
“In order to get the sound I wanted, I learned how to do all of this on my own,” Flower has said.
In an unexpected addition to the night, Flower was joined for several songs by the “violinist of the stars,” Caroline Campbell. During an energetic duet of Chloe Flower’s “No Limit,” each performer’s virtuosic talents amplified the other’s, making for an unforgettable finale.
In the lobby after the show, Flower was surprised by her former elementary school music teachers—with their awestruck current students in tow—as well as close friends from the past, making her homecoming all the sweeter.
It seems without a doubt that Chloe Flower is opening her own doors for the next generation—and we can’t wait to see where she goes from here.
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