Thomas Cabaniss's 'Tiny Bits of Outrageous Love' Released

In celebration of Valentine’s Day, composer Thomas Cabaniss and pianists Michael Shinn and Jessica Chow Shinn announce the release of their debut collaborative album, Tiny Bits of Outrageous Love. Recorded at Schroeder Hall at the Green Music Center at Sonoma State University in 2019, Tiny Bits is a 7-movement piano four hands work dedicated to Thomas’s wife, Deborah. The piece saw its premiere at Thomas’s 50th Birthday Celebration Concert held at the Juilliard School in May 2012 and has since been performed numerous times by the husband and wife team, both Yamaha artists. 

“From the early days of my beautiful relationship with Jessica, our dear friend Tom has played the role of artistic cupid,” says Michael, Dean of Music at Boston Conservatory at Berklee. “He inspired Jessica and me to start collaborating at the piano in a set he adapted for us, and the musical journey that ensued has been rich, fruitful, and enormously satisfying. Jessica and I truly love this set, and it is pure joy for us to now share it widely with the world.” 

Jessica, who is the co-founder and co-Artistic Director of the pianoSonoma Music Festival alongside Michael, reflects on the set: “Everything is in the score: conversation, excitement, pure love, pursuit, contentment, tension, acceptance. When life is stressful and confusing, I always come back to Tom’s music to ground me and to bring beauty back into my life. We are so thrilled to record this and to bring the piece to a wider audience. We’ve played it for many audiences over the years, and it has always been a hit. Somehow, everyone finds a way to relate to the piece, even with their multitudes of lived experiences.”

Click to listen digitally. 

Watch Michael and Jessica perform "Lovesong":

To read a movement by movement breakdown, click here to view program notes written by Thomas.

Tiny Bits of Outrageous Love was engineered by Anthony Barfield and Mixed/Mastered by Velocity Music, Inc. Album Art by Michelle Parkos.

About the Artists

Thomas Cabaniss writes for opera, theater, dance, film, and the concert stage. His song “An Old Story” with text by Tracy K. Smith was premiered as part of Carnegie Hall’s Ode to Joy: A Global Concert, performed by Joyce DiDonato and Yannick Nézet Séguin. Recent commissions include Double Rainbow, a concerto for two pianos and orchestra (Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra), One Silken Thread for Bay Chamber Concerts in Rockport, Maine; four works for Carnegie Hall’s orchestra education program (LinkUp!), and My Song Is A Fire, an oratorio for the Fairfield County Chorale. Other works include The Reclamation, Noise Speed, It’s All True, and The Short-Cut for choreographer Hilary Easton. The Sandman, a chamber opera based on a story by E.T.A. Hoffmann, was premiered at the Connelly Theater in New York in over thirty performances. 

His theater scores include: The American Plan (Broadway), Buffalo Gal (Primary Stages, Studio Arena Theater, Williamstown Theater Festival); Old Comedy (Classic Stage Co. and Target Margin) Mamba's Daughters (Target Margin Theater, Spoleto Festival USA); Galileo (Yale Repertory Theater); The Guest Lecturer (George Street Playhouse); A Streetcar Named Desire, A Christmas Carol (Dallas Theater Center); Pericles, The Marriage of Bette & Boo, Twelfth Night (Center Stage, Baltimore). His concert music has been performed by The Orchestra of St. Luke’s and over 100 orchestras in the U.S. and around the world. 

He helped to create Moving Star, a vocal improvisation laboratory in residence at the Resnick Education Wing at Carnegie Hall, and over the last three years it has produced an opera for babies (Otoyotoy) with libretto by Zoe Palmer and Blessing, an interactive singing experience. In 2019, it premiered a new opera for babies: Nooma.

He has written for The Young People’s Chorus of New York City and those commissions have been performed around the country. He serves on the theory faculty of The Juilliard School and as a consultant for the Weill Music Institute at Carnegie Hall, where he helped to create The Lullaby Project, collaborating with young parents in shelters, hospitals, and prisons.

Michael Shinn became the Dean of Music at Boston Conservatory at Berklee in 2017. In this capacity, he oversees the music division faculty and students, directs artistic planning and strategizing for the division, and works closely with the Vice President for Academic Affairs in leading curricular innovation. As the voice of the division, Michael represents all matters pertaining to the community in Berklee-wide committees, as well as in all external partnerships.

One of the first collaborations Michael brought to the Conservatory was with the Silkroad Ensemble, which has impacted the student experience in myriad ways ranging from performance collaborations at Symphony Hall to artistic risk-taking in the classroom. This long-term residency has been especially beneficial for students during the pandemic, as Silkroad artists have led modules connecting health, wellness, and mindfulness with artistry and creativity. To support both students and faculty during remote work, Michael also established relationships with industry leaders in music technology and audio and video production. As a result, Boston Conservatory students are now at the cutting edge in their career preparation for a new normal in the performing arts. 

Michael’s diverse career in music reflects his deep passion for performance, education, entrepreneurship, and innovation in the arts. Prior to this appointment at Boston Conservatory at Berklee, Michael was chair of keyboard studies at The Juilliard School, where he taught piano, chamber music, piano pedagogy, and keyboard skills for both pianists and conductors. He also served as senior advisor for artistic and educational programs at Juilliard Global Ventures, where he was the professor for Juilliard’s first online course, Juilliard Piano Class: Sharpen Your Artistry.

Based on the belief that musicians must successfully communicate through spoken word in addition to performance, Michael launched the Speaking from the Stage initiative at Juilliard, which prepares students to speak to their audiences at their graduation recitals and engage with arts lovers and future supporters. As a spokesperson for the arts, Michael has presented and moderated panels about the future of arts education and the role of the arts in society at SXSW EDU, the Pebble Beach Authors and Ideas Festival, Sphinx Connect, and the Yamaha Educational Leader’s Summit.

Michael has designed innovative lectures and courses on a variety of subjects, often focusing on his specialty, the music of Franz Liszt. In 2011, he was the artistic director of the Liszt Festival at Juilliard, a series of lecture-recitals celebrating the composer’s bicentennial that brought together world-class artists and pedagogues including Jerome Lowenthal and Margo Garrett.

A passionate advocate for new music, Michael is a Yamaha Artist and frequently performs as a duo with his wife, pianist Jessica Chow Shinn. Additionally, they co-founded and direct the pianoSonoma Music Festival, a unique program that brings together musicians from all backgrounds to collaborate and perform in Sonoma County, CA.

Pianist Jessica Chow Shinn is the co-founder and co-Artistic Director of the pianoSonoma Music Festival. Having just finished its tenth season, this unique festival brings together Artists in Residence, young musicians on the cusp of major concert careers, with adult musicians of all backgrounds to collaborate and perform at the Green Music Center in Sonoma County, CA. For the 2020 edition, Jessica, and her husband, pianist Michael Shinn, led the festival in pivoting to a virtual one, pianoSonoma at Your Doorstep, which was rich with artistic engagement, analysis courses, Artist Exchange talks, and both private and livestreamed public performances. Jessica is also currently associate professor of collaborative piano at Boston Conservatory at Berklee. She was a faculty member at The Juilliard School in the College and Evening Divisions from 2012-2017.

Passionate advocates of new music, Jessica and Michael have given world premieres by composers such as Adam Schoenberg and Thomas Cabaniss. They commissioned the latter to write a major two-piano concerto, Double Rainbow, that will be the centerpiece of a forthcoming album featuring the music Cabaniss has written for the duo. In April 2017, Jessica and Michael performed the world premiere of Double Rainbow, a two-piano concerto by Cabaniss, with the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra and again in 2018 with the San Luis Obispo Symphony. Jessica’s other performing engagements have included recitals in Alice Tully Hall, Weill Hall at the Green Music Center, the Peter Jay Sharp Theater, Trinity Church in Lower Manhattan, Chapelle historique du Bon-Pasteur in Montréal, and Salle Cortot in Paris. Jessica has been invited to speak about the role of the arts in society and to perform at the Pebble Beach Authors and Ideas Festival. 

Jessica is dedicated to the musical education of both adult and pre-college students. As a musicianship coach in the Metropolitan Opera’s Lindemann Young Artists Program, she has worked individually with the rising singers of tomorrow.

Jessica received her Doctor of Musical Arts at Juilliard, where she studied with Margo Garrett, Jonathan Feldman, and Brian Zeger. She received her Master of Music from New England Conservatory of Music and her Bachelor of Music and Bachelor of Arts from Oberlin College. She is also a published author in the Journal of Physical Chemistry and Inorganic Chemistry.

Jessica is a Yamaha Artist.