"I suppose recitals usually suggest some sort of grand culmination of mastery: years spent diligently refining your lifelong instrument, rehearsing pieces to intimate familiarity, perhaps towards full memorization. This final DMA recital takes an opposite approach. All pieces on the program feature some sort of first attempt at doing something, or developing a skill that is not something I consider myself to be fully comfortable in. Rather than treating the recital as a conclusive marker of my studies, I instead imagine it as an exploratory space for cultivating emerging interests and reconsidering what “performing” can mean to me.

Across the program, I perform in formats tangentially related to my usual practice of contemporary cello performance, all contributing to an artistic identity shaped by multi-instrumental and multidisciplinary work. This recital gathers many firsts for me: a duo piece realized as a twin-video installation, an attempt at linking projections directly with composed music, performing as a new-music pianist, writing for electronics, and working within the realm of theater." - Robbie Bui