MARILYN CRISPELL

On one of her most recent visits to Philadelphia, Marilyn Crispell visited the house where she’d grown up for the first time since she’d moved away at age 10. She was shocked to discover how small the brick rowhome seemed in comparison to her memories, the vast lawn where she’d played as a child revealed as a meager strip of grass.

“It makes you wonder about the world that we’re in now,” she mused over the phone from her home in Woodstock, N.Y. “Is that just going to seem like the little bits of lawn on Farnsworth Street at some point?”

For Crispell, it’s very likely that the world she currently occupies will seem small by tomorrow’s standards. Throughout her career, the pianist has thrived on expanding her circles, of collaborators, influences, or approaches. In 2018 alone, she was featured on five distinct