Christina Maria Bray, collaborative pianist & interdisciplinary methodologist

This season, my calendar is anchored by two very different December programs. On December 17, I join North Shore Voices for the first time, playing their “Mostly Italian with a Sprinkling of Holiday” at Willowdale — an Italian-inspired supper-club evening where I accompany the duo’s arias and perform piano solos including Schubert’s Impromptu Op. 90, No. 3, a Brissler arrangement of the overture from Rossini’s Il Barbiere di Siviglia, and David Hicken’s arrangement of Carol of the Bells. Two days later, I present “A Christmas Sojourn: Music Through the Ages” at Crowell Chapel in Manchester-by-the-Sea (December 19) — an evening of traditional Christmas music co-directed with Rene Minalga-Rheault that journeys from the earliest Gregorian chants celebrating the birth of Jesus to the beloved carols we still sing today, in styles ranging from medieval and Renaissance a cappella to John Rutter arrangements and jazz piano, including piano four-hands duets.

Closer to the bench, I continue my regular work as a guest pianist for North Shore churches, coach opera singers and chamber musicians across Greater Boston, and carry my interdisciplinary methodology into new music-for-dancers programming, following the specialized series I designed for Champion Dance Sport in Everett. Recent seasons have also included adjudicating for the National Piano Guild and my ongoing guest-clinician work in piano performance and pedagogy.