One year ago today, we gathered some of our favorite humans in the world into a crowded room in East London for our wedding celebration (dress code: animal-themed fancy dress optional — but of course!). We hugged, danced, had a Mariah Carey Christmas singalong, and enjoyed a massive buffet of Indian food, Chelsea buns, and cheese, never once considering that in a few short months such practices would be taboo and downright unsafe. We are grateful beyond words to have experienced so much love in one room, and will treasure the memories from that day forever. A year later, the two of us are singing (plucking? kazooing?) a different tune, but just like last year, we love a crowd, costumes, and homemade arrangements in close harmony. We know our funny little #UriPosteJukeBox doesn’t come close to fixing the loss, disappointment, and loneliness of this year. But we hope, for one last time in 2020, that we can bring some wee smiles to your faces, however fleeting. Sending love to each and every one of you, and thank you for all you’ve done to make US feel loved this year. Happy holidays, friends — onwards and upwards.

‘Tis the season for fuzzy reindeer hats, delicious-smelling candles, and... unnecessarily stressful double stop passages? We’ve both been suckers for this cozy song — particularly Nat King Cole’s iconic version — for as long as we can remember, and this juicy Christmas adaptation is just one more excuse for me to fulfill my ongoing dream of being in one of those old-timey, shimmery string sections. If you’d like to hear an expanded version of this arrangement and other goodies (another Tom Poster holiday masterpiece plus gems by Reynaldo Hahn and Florence Price), please join the two of us, Amy Harman, Braimah Kanneh-Mason, Rosalind Ventris, and Sheku Kanneh-Mason for a special Christmas episode of In Tune on Friday, December 18 at 5 p.m. GMT on BBC Radio 3!

See, it wasn’t “good-bye” after Day 88! 👋🏽 A warm “hello again!” from our tiny music room here in London — we’ve missed you all more than we can say. And has making videos gotten harder in the last month and a half or is it just us!? ...anyone? ...no, just us? 😬🤪 It seems like another lifetime ago that we were in a steady rhythm with our #UriPosteJukeBox project, and for as much as we’ve missed connecting with all of you on a daily basis, we’ve been grateful for some much-needed time to laze in the garden, cook, tackle some home improvement projects, obsess over our houseplant babies, and drum up some new musical plans! (Watch this space for some very exciting news next week!) Most of all, we’ve been enjoying hanging out together, and have been able to confirm throughout the various stages of this lockdown that we do, indeed, adore each other. 🦩💗🦩 And so we offer you this #UriPosteJukeBonus: ‘Adoration’ by the great Florence Price, originally written for organ but utterly irresistible for violin and piano. And in case you’re in the mood to revisit Careless Whisper on the kazoo, Jessica McClintock’s 2002 collection, or Tom dressed as Olaf the snowman, all 88 JukeBox videos can be found here for UriPosterity! www.elenaurioste.com/jukebox

Tom and I were feeling all the emotions as we made this recording this morning. Our 88-day #UriPosteJukeBox journey — a day for each piano key — has been one of the most memorable and meaningful experiences of our lives; we’ve mentioned to each other repeatedly that in many ways this project has embodied our most authentic musical selves. You, dear audience, have made #UriPosteJukeBox what it is, and we are unspeakably grateful for the connections it has allowed us to feel with friends old and new, and for all the amazing requests we received. At this hour of reckoning for the world, when we’re physically separated from loved ones, more conscious than ever of inequalities and injustices, and, in the arts world, perilously aware of the fragility of our entire existence, we have been truly overwhelmed by the warmth, love, and kindness shown by this community, and by the power of music of all kinds to bring us together as we try to process everything that’s going on. This definitely isn’t a goodbye — this daily chapter may be closing, but we’ll still be popping up with posts now and then, and are busy figuring out how we can incorporate JukeBox elements into our live concerts in the future. All of our videos will remained archived at www.elenaurioste.com/jukebox and on my YouTube channel in a handy #UriPosteJukeBox playlist. We are always a message away. So, for Day 88, we leave you with Richard Strauss’s radiant song ‘Morgen!’ (‘Tomorrow!’), written as a wedding present for Strauss’s wife Pauline, setting words by John Henry Mackay (which I’ve shared below in translation). Of course the one thing our arrangement misses is a singer; that “lost” voice seems an apt metaphor for our friends, families, and musical partners we miss terribly, and with whom we look forward to being reunited very soon. With acknowledgement of each past moment that has led us here; with every ounce of my love and gratitude for Tom, my greatest present of all; and with hope for a brighter future for each of you, for our planet, for all, we take a little bow... for now. ♥️ Morgen! (Tomorrow!) And tomorrow the sun will shine again And on the path that I shall take, It will unite us, happy ones, again, Amid this same sun-breathing earth... And to the shore, broad, blue-waved, We shall quietly and slowly descend, Speechless we shall gaze into each other’s eyes, And the mute silence of bliss shall fall on us...

It’s Day 87, and time for the penultimate post in our daily #UriPosteJukeBox series. The general kazoo-appreciation vibe here inspired Tom to have one more go at a Glenn Miller number, In the Mood... and despite the many, many reasons to despair these days, we hope you’ll allow yourself two and a half minutes of mood-lifting sillies. Inching closer towards the end of JukeBox has given me a bit of space to think and process — leaping into “action” so soon after lockdown began was in many ways a coping mechanism for us both, and we haven’t given ourselves much time to be still and truly process all that’s been happening, on levels both macro and micro. This morning, after a particularly grueling virtual yoga class with my beloved Intermission family, I realized just how much I miss all of my people, how much sadness there is to sit with and let flow, and how helpless I so often feel; but it also afforded me the space to recognize how fortunate I am — for so many things, among them to connect with so many of you through this funny little project. Oh a peppier note (more in keeping with the spirit of Tom’s insanely brilliant arrangement for today!) some of you may have seen that the Royal Philharmonic Society recently announced a new category for its 2020 #RPSAwards: Inspiration Awards, nominated by the public, to celebrate work which has moved or inspired people during lockdown. We’d heartily encourage anyone who wishes to cast a vote, and needless to say, if anyone feels like nominating #UriPosteJukeBox — though we recognize that in the grand scheme of things, it’s rather trivial — it would mean the world to us. https://royalphilharmonicsociety.org.uk/awards/rps_music_awards/inspiration-awards/inspiration-awards-nomination-form See you tomorrow for the final installment... ♥️

For today’s pre-penultimate #UriPosteJukeBox post, some thoughtful words from Tom, which — along with his performance today — have touched me immensely, particularly the last paragraph: “This is the slow movement of Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G major, his last major work, completed in 1931. While the outer movements are filled with joy and brilliance, here Ravel spins one of the most perfect, seemingly infinite melodies ever written. Though it’s music which seems to have been plucked fully-formed from paradise, its apparent spontaneity actually caused Ravel great pain (“That flowing phrase! How I worked over it bar by bar! It nearly killed me!”) Though the piano is the first to sing out the melody, the movement contains a succession of extraordinary orchestral solos, mainly for the wind players, with the biggest jewel being reserved for the cor anglais. In transcribing the orchestral parts for Elena to play alone, we’ve managed to keep all the melodies and countermelodies intact, though of course there’s no substitute for Ravel’s incomparable orchestrations. I miss live performance more than I can say, and was keen to get my mind into an ‘on-stage’ zone for this. Sure enough, as soon we sat down to record, I felt a huge swell of adrenaline, and all the good and bad things that come with it - the quickening heartbeat, that slight trembling of the fingers (and sometimes the mind!), an emotional intensity, that heightened desire to communicate as if it might be the last time…”