For Sova — the stage name of New York-based pianist/composer Sophia Subbayya Vastek — the piano has always been home. A second generation pianist, she holds a deep reverence for her collective history, coupled with an exploratory ear, and moves quietly between musical worlds. Over the years, her intuitive playing style — rooted in tenderness, improvisation, and classical training — has evolved into a dynamic, cinematic sound.
Described as performing with "passion and profound tenderness” (Second Inversion) and “serene strokes and lyrical beauty” (Brooklyn Rail), her music is quietly devastating, blossoming into ambient-inspired soundscapes that range from whisper-soft echoes to expressive cascades.
Her most recent LP, In Our Softening (2022), produced by Sam Torres (Polymouth Music), features nine of her own beguiling piano compositions, each track a part of a thoughtfully woven tapestry. Recorded entirely on an upright built in 1902 — complete with a giant crack in the soundboard — the album draws listeners in with its vulnerable and vibrant intimacy. Exploring themes of loss, rebirth, and finding softness within an increasingly hard world, the album has been called “a tender and revelatory balm" by editors at I Care If You Listen, “heaven on earth” (Sun 13), and “one of the very best things I've heard all year” by longtime music journalist Steve Smith (Night After Night). The record also made it onto Bandcamp’s All-Time Best Selling Solo Piano list.
Her debut album, Histories (Innova Recordings, 2017), was produced by Grammy-winning engineer Adam Abeshouse, and described as “a beautiful mosaic of the larger cultural intersections of our world” (Second Inversion). She has also released an EP of the complete solo piano works by composer Lili Boulanger (1893-1918), entitled Lili (2020, reissued 2023).
Equally important to the music itself are the spaces in which Sova’s music exists. Whether she is performing or presenting, she is dedicated to creating musical experiences that are grounded in care and intentional gathering. In that spirit, she is a co-curator of the popular Lift Series at the Troy Savings Bank Music Hall, currently in its sold-out fifth season. She also hosts concerts in her home — a converted church-space in South Troy called Troy Listening Room.
In 2022, Sova was recognized as a composer by the New York State Council on the Arts and New York Foundation for the Arts (NYSCA/NYFA) as a Music/Sound Fellow, a statewide program focused on the evolution of contemporary art. Her music has been featured on NPR, BBC, and KEXP, and she has performed across three continents.
After exploring the vast sanctuary of an empty church in 2022’s Masses, Armbruster inhabits a new setting with polar opposite qualities for his sophomore release with Dear Life Records, Can I Sit Here. The music, colored by distortion and cutting rawness befitting its subject matter, was created and recorded live in mono in the small back room of an apartment. Acoustic violin takes a backseat to Armbruster’s heavily distorted electric violin on this record as he improvises over textures simultaneously warm and dissonant. It is a reflection on loss and the feelings that follow a death, the delicate balance between despair, celebration, nostalgia, isolation, and kinship.
Armbruster is based in Troy, NY and is behind a multi-faceted body of work exploring performance art, electric violin, Irish fiddle, traditional music, field recording, dance, and theatre. In addition to his solo projects, he plays electric violin and guitar for Blue Ranger, is a member of Hold On Honeys, and performs and records with numerous other artists in the capital region. He was musical director and lead composer for Troy Foundry Theatre’s original musical, City of Myth: Illium Sings. Outside of performance, Armbruster is a cartoonist and music educator, and proud parent of a 4-year-old.
Please bring comfortable seats or blankets to relax and enjoy this special musical event at pastoral Hillview Farm.
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