Chloe Flower on Making Her Festive “Chloe Hearts Christmas” Album and Wanting to Work with Mariah Carey (Exclusive)

The crossover classical pianist opens up about the making of her holiday record to PEOPLE

Chloe Flower may have initially captured audiences' attention during Cardi B's 2019 Grammys performance of "Money," but the "popsical" (a.k.a. pop-meets-classical) pianist has continued to blossom in the classical crossover space, collaborating with everyone from Céline Dion to Babyface and Questlove.

After releasing her debut album Chloe Flower in 2021, the 38-year-old pianist, composer and producer is diving into something a little different that she loves — Christmas.

On Nov. 17, Flower released her first Christmas LP Chloe Hearts Christmas — a 16-track project, throughout which she put her own spin on holiday classics and contemporary favorites.

"This is an opportunity for me to not only do an album of my favorite music, but also to be able to reach an audience using music they already know [and] make it my own sound," Flower tells PEOPLE over the phone from her apartment in New York City.

In an exclusive interview, Flower opens up about why she wanted to make a Christmas album, her dream collaborators and breaking stereotypes in classical music.

What made you want to make a Christmas album?

I'll have to be honest, Christmas is my favorite holiday. Musically, as an instrumentalist — I don't have lyrics — so there's always a little bit of an embedded challenge. And with Christmas, everybody knows the music already. So it was the perfect way for me to navigate between classical traditions, but also innovation and creating something new. And often if I'm writing my own music or writing something completely new, it can be more challenging because people don't know the tune. That's why Christmas covers are so great. Hopefully when you listen to my album, [it] sounds like Chloe because they already have a first step of already knowing the melody.

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What was your favorite song on the record to put your own twist on?

“Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy” is probably my favorite because it really represents my “popsical” sound, like the juxtaposition of something as old and traditional as Tchaikovsky's “Nutcracker” on top of 808 beats and drums. I had so much fun with the strings, just really exploring that innovation with tradition. That was kind of the centerpiece sound around me. I love beats, hip-hop and classical, so it was the perfect combo.

“Popsical” is such a fun way to describe your music. How has it helped you connect with your listeners?

I've had that term to describe myself in meetings, with just friends and people because it's always hard to describe yourself when there's no real genre associated to you. I am not truly classical. I'm not truly pop. I'm not even truly classical crossover. So it's been so helpful. I love pop aesthetics. I love how artists that are not in the classical space do their artwork, how they style themselves and the collaborations they do. I genuinely love that style and that type of music. Babyface actually was the one who encouraged me. He was like, “Just keep going. Be your authentic self and pave your own path.” So [it] was really important for me to stay true to myself.

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That's so great. You obviously had this breakout moment with Cardi B at the Grammys. Have you found it challenging to balance the viral success that you had from that moment and also trying to really sustain your audience thereafter?

So much of who I am musically as a person, in terms of my musical sound, but also my style, didn't happen on the night of the Grammys — it happened 25 years beforehand. That night was a platform where — Cardi and her team really allowed me to just be myself. I didn't have any choreo. I didn't have any real rehearsal or any kind of direction. So when that went viral, it was kind of perfect for me. It gave me that validation. All of a sudden people get me now. What that really allowed me to do was to continue on that path I talked about earlier and be even more confident. It’s scary when you're doing something that you don't have anybody to really look at and say, “Oh, that's who I want to be just like.” It's really scary navigating that road. That gave me the confidence boost that I needed to continue. And then I did the Golden Globes, and that went viral, too. After the Grammys, I saw a change in popular artists like rappers [and] singers [who] started using a lot more live instruments, not only in their music, but in their performances on the stage. I think that that was huge for instrumentalists everywhere. 

What are the most rewarding reactions you've had about how you've impacted other classical musicians who maybe don't really fit the mold?

I want to see kids signing up for music education the way they sign up for sports education, and the only way they're going to stop cutting funding is if there's a demand. And in order for there to be a demand, it has to be appealing to a younger audience. So, for me, one of the best things that came out of the Grammys was I got hundreds of messages from parents who showed these videos of their kids. I remember this one little girl didn't even have a keyboard, so she was watching my video and playing the piano on a pillow. I sent her a keyboard — I was crying because it was so cute. The biggest reward is seeing kids excited about learning an instrument for the first time. I want kids to be excited about learning an instrument. [I hope] seeing a crystal piano and feathers, all of those things, really just add to that fuel of music and make learning an instrument much cooler than it is.

Tell me about some of the work you did with schools.

I did a lot of work with Compton Unified School District on music education, and I would ask the kids who wanted to learn the piano, and they would just stare at me. No one raised their hand, and I decided, let me just play a cover of a pop song that they know. Then I asked them [the question] again, and they all raised their hand. So really, that shows me that there needs to be some kind of bridge, some kind of path in which I can relate to them because they don't understand. It's not that they didn't want to learn. They didn't understand what it is. Creating the visual and the musical accessibility to kids is really a key.

Who do you dream about collaborating with in the future?

Classically, I'm obsessed with Yo-Yo Ma. I think we both love Bach so much — I've always wanted to do anything with him. He's so amazing, and I think pop-wise, I've always wanted to collaborate with Mariah Carey. She's obviously the “Queen of Christmas,” but she's also an incredible songwriter. She wrote one of the songs that's on my album, “Where Are You Christmas?” Even though Faith Hill's [singing], I don't think people realize she's one of the writers. She's just such a huge inspiration to me as a female writer, someone who writes and produces their own music. [I’ve] always wanted to do a Christmas song with her.

That would be incredible. Maybe you'll be one of her special guests at her annual holiday tour.

I would hold a triangle for her if [she] wanted me to. I would literally play a triangle for her. 

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You recently celebrated your album at Casa Cipriani, and you told a story about how someone came up to you and said that you looked like “the pianist's mistress." How do you handle sexist comments like that?

That was at Tribeca Festival. I had composed Misty Copeland's documentary A Ballerina's Tale, and I was doing the red carpet. One of the photographers yelled out, “you look at the composer's mistress.” The [red] carpet is scary for me as it is. After that, I was just in shock a little bit. But I already knew at the time that women were severely underrepresented in the composing space. During that time when I was in Tribeca, I think only one or two women had ever been nominated for an Academy Award in best original score as a solo writer. So when that photographer yelled that out to me I was like, this is a real problem. When you Google “composer,” you'll just see a whole [list] of white men. [The photographer’s comment] gave me more motivation. I'm going to show you what a composer can look like. It can look like me, it can look like you, it can look like anyone. [It] really motivated me to change that narrative, especially after hearing that. It lit me up.

What are your plans for 2024?

I'm always working on music. I could put out a solo piano album, but I could also put out an album with an orchestra. I could do collabs, but right now, I've already started working on my third album, which is going to be big orchestral sounds and piano sounds, but with lots of teeth under it. My next album is going to be a big dance club, psychedelic and something fun. But [it’s] definitely going to be big sounds, epic strings, epic piano and epic beats.

What's your favorite holiday tradition?

People think it's weird but I eat kimchi with everything. I love stuffing and I love kimchi, so I eat those together.

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