Pianist-composer and 2021 Guggenheim Fellow, Helen Sung, has had a career-long search for inspiration beyond the boundaries of jazz. While she received classical music training as an undergraduate at the University of Texas at Austin, she has used her connoisseur’s ear for the many ways in which jazz and classical music have converged. She celebrates the work of influential women composers, drafting new arrangements of tunes by Geri Allen, Carla Bley, Mary Lou Williams, Marian McPartland, and Toshiko Akiyoshi, while carrying the tradition forward with her own stunning new works. Ms. Sung is currently enjoying a particularly fruitful period, with several fascinating projects including the application of her 2021 Guggenheim Fellowship to a multi-movement piece for big band slated for completion in 2022. She is producing a series of events this year using the tragic, recent attacks on the Asian American/Pacific Islander community as a catalyst for interdisciplinary events with her quartet and a poet, a DJ, and an installation artist. She is also working on a collaborative project with dancer and neuro-rehabilitation researcher Miriam King to create a dance program with original music for dementia/Alzheimer’s patients.