Chloe Flower, a Pianist Who Changes Key from Liberace to Cardi B

Title: Chloe Flower

Age: 37

Hometown: Mechanicsburg, Pa.

Now Lives: In a two-bedroom residence in a Frank Gehry-designed tower in Decrease Manhattan.

Declare to Fame: Ms. Flower is a classical pianist and composer recognized for her self-titled crossover style, “Popsical,” which merges classical music with pop and hip-hop. She performs on lavish pianos as soon as performed by Liberace and embraces couture onstage, favoring Alexander McQueen and Azzedine Alaïa items. She first went viral in 2019, when she carried out “Money” with Cardi B through the Grammy Awards, and once more in January when irate viewers mistook her for enjoying the cut-off music through the Golden Globes (she solely performed out and in of economic breaks). “Attempting one thing new is difficult in a style that has stayed the identical for hundreds of years,” she stated. “There’s this concept that classical must be a sure manner and that’s the elitism I’m attempting to sort out.”

Massive Break: After finding out on the Manhattan College of Music and the Royal Academy of Music, Ms. Flower developed her Popsical model, which implements pop track buildings with entice beats and strings, however she struggled to search out somebody prepared to take an opportunity on her work. Round 2008, a well-connected good friend introduced her to a Babyface concert in Atlantic Metropolis, and Ms. Flower met the artist backstage. She later emailed him a GarageBand demo of her music. “His supervisor wrote me again saying, ‘He likes what he heard,’” Ms. Flower stated. “I flew to L.A. with my mother to fulfill him and he signed me the identical day.”

Newest challenge: Final December, Ms. Flower performed for President Biden on the Kennedy Heart Honors in a efficiency that acknowledged the Cuban-born composer, Tania León. In January, she carried out with Lil Baby on “Saturday Evening Stay.”

Subsequent factor: Ms. Flower is recording a radio-friendly Christmas album rendered in Popsical. It will likely be crammed with vacation requirements and, she hopes, cameos from Babyface and Lizzo, who she want to invite for a flute solo.

Viva Liberace: When Ms. Flower was a pupil, one instructor grew irritated together with her theatrical taking part in model, so he hit her hand with a pencil and chided, “Who do you assume you’re? Liberace?” Ms. Flower had by no means heard of Liberace. “At residence I regarded him up and thought, ‘Wow, I really like him,’” she stated. “He didn’t conform and he was capable of crossover from classical into the pop world.” A couple of years in the past, the Liberace Foundation lent her a mirrored-tiled piano. It now sits in her sky-high living room overlooking the town. “It took 9 hours to lastly get it up the elevator and into my residence,” she stated.