You’ve built a multifaceted career across film, television, and your artist project, IAMEVE. Can you take us back to the beginning – what first drew you to composing, and how did that path unfold for you?

I’ve always been drawn to the emotional architecture of music above all, regardless of genre. The music that stayed with me most was the kind that created a story in my mind. For me, music was always visual. I would hear something and immediately see colors and visuals with the sound. 

I moved to New York when I was 17 to study classical voice and audio engineering at NYU, and that’s where things really opened up. I had a composition teacher who introduced me to a wide range of composers, and I was surrounded by so many incredible musicians. I started experimenting more seriously, sampling sounds outside my apartment window and turning them into percussive elements, exploring sound design, production, and songwriting. I was just absorbing everything and being a fly on the wall in a lot of inspiring spaces, including interning at Philip Glass’s studio, which completely changed how I thought about music.

Early on, I was really drawn to composing, arranging, and producing, but I ended up leaning more into songwriting and production for a while, partly because that felt like the more visible or accessible path at the time. At the same time, I never fully left composition. I kept weaving it in where I could, working on commercials, contributing to different projects, ghost-writing on a feature, building my own library, and working on immersive projects. When I moved to Los Angeles, that naturally opened up more opportunities in film, television, and commercial work through my community.

It’s never been a linear path. I’ve always had multiple creative threads going at once, including IAMEVE as a more personal outlet. And becoming a mother actually brought me full circle. It shifted how I was listening and creating, and pulled me back toward the kind of listening that first made me fall in love with composition, but from a completely different perspective. So in a lot of ways, it’s been less about a single turning point and more about returning to something that was always there, just evolving over time.

Your work blends electronic production with acoustic composition in a very cinematic, emotionally driven way. How did you develop that hybrid sound, and what continues to inspire it?

I grew up on a pretty wide range of music: classical, acoustic, rock, soul, jazz… everything from Carole King to Pink Floyd to Brahms to Billie Holiday, and so much musical theater. So that foundation was always there.

Then I moved to New York and got exposed to a completely different world of sound experimenting with foley, beats, orchestral music, sound design, and it kind of blew everything open for me. It felt like suddenly there were no rules, just possibilities. I wanted to explore all of it. At the time, though, I didn’t fully have the tools to execute what I was hearing in my head, most of what I was making still leaned acoustic.

That shift into a more hybrid sound actually came later, in a way I didn’t expect. After I moved to Los Angeles, I had an accident where I shattered my elbow and couldn’t really play instruments for a long time. It forced me to work almost entirely in the box, with electronics and production, and something opened up there. I had to approach music differently, and it pushed me deeper into sound as texture and space, not just performance.

Since then, it’s just become a natural blend. I don’t really separate acoustic and electronic anymore and feel like they’re just different ways of building a world. I’m always thinking about how something feels, what it looks like, what space it creates around you. What continues to inspire it is that same instinct I had early on that music can hold an entire visual and emotional landscape. I’m always chasing that feeling of creating something you don’t just hear, but step into.

You’ve contributed to projects ranging from Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters to series like Ray Donovan and Work in Progress. Is there a particular type of storytelling or medium you feel most connected to?

I don’t know that it’s one specific medium as much as the kind of storytelling. I’m really drawn to character-driven work where the music is holding something internal. I tend to gravitate toward stories that feel a little mythological or surreal and characters who are a bit fractured or in transition. I love being able to play with transformation through music.

Getting to write the end title song for Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters was probably my biggest opportunity to step into that in a real way. I’m so grateful I got to work with Andrew Lockington and be part of that world. I’ve always been drawn to mythology and surreal, fairytale-like visuals, so getting inside Thalia’s head and giving her a voice in that moment felt so special, like bringing her to life and hinting at where her story could go next.

What I find most exciting and fulfilling is getting inside a character and translating their emotional world into sound. So whatever the medium is, that’s usually what inspires me: something where the music can actually be transformative.

Your EP Isolation marked a creative turning point, especially in stepping further into production. What shifted for you during that time, and how did it open the door to your upcoming album Legacy?

Isolation came out of a very specific moment. I was in the middle of the pandemic with a toddler, and I built a Eurorack system at home, which in itself felt a little chaotic, but also grounding. It became this new way for me to explore sound in a more tactile, experimental way.

That project was definitely a departure from my earlier work. I was blending modular synthesis with orchestral elements and vocal textures, and letting things be more open, more textural, more intuitive. A lot of it was reflecting the emotional landscape of that time: the repetition, the uncertainty, the quiet, but also these small moments of wonder and imagination that kept breaking through.

It forced me to slow down and listen differently. I wasn’t trying to fit anything into a format. I was just building worlds and following where the sound wanted to go.

That shift carried directly into Legacy, even though Legacy lives in a different space. Becoming a mother deepened all of it. It changed what I was paying attention to emotionally, and what felt worth expressing.

Legacy is very much an IAMEVE record. It’s song-driven, but it’s shaped by what opened up during Isolation. It’s still rooted in texture and emotion, just brought into a more structured, lyrical world. It really started with Isolation giving me the space to trust my own process again.

Your new record Legacy is deeply rooted in your experience as a mother and reflects on the world we’re leaving behind. Has motherhood transformed your creative process and the themes you explore in your music?

Completely. It shifted everything, both my creative process and my perspective. I feel like I’ve stepped more into owning my process and my voice than ever before. It also forced me to be more intentional about what I take on, because you just have less time and things really have to be worth it.

There’s a kind of intensity that comes with being a mother that’s hard to explain until you’re in it. You’re holding so much at once. Love, fear, responsibility, hope. It changes what feels important to express. I think it made me more honest in my work, because there’s less space to hide from what you’re actually feeling.

I was also diagnosed as AuDHD after becoming a mother, because my bandwidth changed and a lot of the things I had unknowingly used to mask before just didn’t work anymore. That shifted things in a big way. I had to really own that I do things differently, and that if something doesn’t feel authentic, the work just doesn’t land.

So much of Legacy came from that tension. Wanting to protect something so deeply, while also being very aware of the state of the world around us. There’s grief in that, but also real beauty and tenderness.

It didn’t replace who I was creatively. It deepened it and brought me back to what matters most.

In 2019, you co-founded Mamas in Music, a global nonprofit supporting mothers and caregivers in the music industry through connection, resources, and advocacy. What inspired you to build that community, and how has it shaped your perspective on connection and support within the industry?

It came directly out of my own experience of becoming a mother while trying to sustain a career in this industry and realizing how little support actually existed for that reality.

In those early months, I kept finding other women in the same position. Incredibly talented, deeply committed, but all running into the same invisible walls. There wasn’t really a space to talk about it honestly, and there weren’t systems in place to support it.

Co-founding Mamas in Music wasn’t some big master plan. It was more of a response. A need to create something that we couldn’t find.

What’s been most meaningful is seeing how ready people were for it. The need for connection, for shared understanding, for real support. It was already there. Sometimes just creating a space where people can find each other shifts everything.

As both an artist and advocate, what changes do you hope to see in the music industry to better support mothers and caregivers?

There are the obvious structural things. Childcare at events and studios, more flexible schedules, spaces that actually account for the fact that you have a life outside of work. Those things matter and would make a real difference.

But I think the bigger shift is cultural. There’s still this underlying idea that you can’t be fully committed to your work and fully present as a caregiver. That you have to choose, or constantly prove yourself in both directions.

That hasn’t been my experience at all. If anything, becoming a mother has made me more focused, more intentional, and more connected to what I’m creating.

I’d love to see an industry that actually recognizes that. One that understands caregiving as part of life, not something you have to work around or hide.

And beyond that, more shared responsibility. Caregiving can’t just sit on individuals, especially mothers, while everything else stays the same. It has to be something we think about collectively if we want a more sustainable and inclusive industry.

With Legacy on the horizon and recent work spanning scoring and collaborations – including placements on Love Island – what are you most excited about right now, and what’s next for you?

I’m really excited that Legacy is finally out. It’s been a long process and it holds so much for me, so it feels good to have it in the world.

Now that it’s complete, I’m looking forward to shifting back into a new instrumental album and continuing to explore that side of my work.

I also recently scored a German short film that’s being submitted to international festivals, and I have a few other projects in development. I’m definitely looking to take on more scoring work and find interesting projects to be a part of.

The Love Island placements actually came out of a Mamas in Music album we created with BMG Production Music UK. That was an inspiring process to collaborate with these amazing mama artists across different parts of the world and seeing them get placements through it. I’d love to see more opportunities like that, where collaboration and community can lead to real outcomes.

On the Mamas in Music side, we’re in a real growth phase. We’ve brought on a new board and are focused on building something that can support the community in a sustainable way. As part of that, we’re expanding leadership and looking toward bringing in a global director to help guide the next phase.

Interview by Alex Petkovski

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