Exclusive: Chloe Flower Continues to Innovate on Album Featuring Broadway Icons

Chloe Flower is a tour de force. Whether in the recording studio or stealing the show with Cardi B at the GRAMMYs, the composer and virtuoso pianist is actively illuminating the rich world of classical music through a pop lens.

Billed as "popsical," her innovative brand of music spans from newly arranged covers of Miley Cyrus songs to original renditions of classic standards- and everything in between. Led with her vast knowledge of music, Flower's new album, "I Love Me More," includes songs from this wide spectrum, also featuring original compositions and a new twist on a musical number that will be more than familiar to Broadway fans.

Ahead of the album arriving this Friday, BroadwayWorld spoke with the musician about her unique style, the importance of exploring new musical genres, and her Broadway hopes and dreams. Additionally, BroadwayWorld is excited to debut an exclusive snippet of Flower's new rendition of "El Tango de Roxanne," featuring Broadway powerhouses Nicole Scherzinger and Ramin Karimloo. Check out the sample above, and pre-save "I Love Me More" here.

This interview has been condensed for clarity and length.

Your style of music is a sort of blend of classical and pop, which you call “popsical." In a nutshell, what makes something “popsical?”

I was always told that I was too pop for classical and too classical for pop. I'd be in the studio in sessions, and they would say, "Can you make it more simple? Can you play less chords?" Obviously the vocal is the lead, but I still felt like there could be this mixture.

The idea of combining the complexity of classical music with a kind of pop sensibility was not just to make it more accessible. Film music does that in a great way: you tell a story in a short period of time with a lot of drama. That was kind of the idea that I had. I loved classical music so much, but I understood very early on that people don't have the bandwidth to listen to a 60-minute piano concerto.

Popsical also takes from the pop aesthetic. Growing up, I wasn't allowed to wear any color on stage or in my lessons, so there's both the aesthetic element and the sound element, the addition of different sounds and textures, like 808s or drums, or synthetic programming.

On this album, you pull from so many different places: pop, film, Broadway, and classical. What guides your decision when choosing a piece to reinterpret or reimagine?  Is every genre fair game when it comes to taking something and putting that popsicle twist on it?

Totally. I think the beautiful thing about instrumental music and kind of why I call it "popsicle" is, as a pianist, I can fit in with so many different genres and sounds. When I was working on this album, I recorded it at Abbey Road with the Royal Philharmonic. Afterward, I got on a plane, landed in New York that night, repacked, and went straight back to the airport to LA to do a session with Mochakk, who is a Brazilian house DJ. I did five days with him, and then I went back into the studio the very next day to record all the piano stuff. So I had to go back into this world. It's kind of crazy, but at the same time, it's all music, and with every genre, I'm always learning.

During the session with Mochakk, I remember he was like, "I need a clicking sound. How about if we all open our cell phones right now and kind of click them together and snap into them?" He created this sound completely organically, added a filter to it, and it became one of the hundreds of sounds you'll hear in our song. I can only experience those kinds of things when I work outside of my own genre. 

And that's how you can make discoveries too.

One of the biggest discoveries I made in that exact moment was this idea of perfection. In the classical space, everything is always perfect. And in this instance, I was like, "What do we do? Do we all just click our phones at the same time?" And he said, "No, it shouldn't be perfect. Just do it and we'll see what happens." That was kind of a light bulb moment for me. To have that kind of epiphany, it can only happen when you're outside of classical music. 

This album encompasses the idea of love: loving other people and loving yourself. Did you choose that theme first and build from there?

When I'm working on a project, I think for me as an artist, it's really hard to separate myself from what's happening in society and what's going on around me. Especially living in a city like New York, I can't help but write for the times in a way. Originally, I wanted to do an album about love. As I was picking the songs and building the story, I had talked to a friend of mine who had broken up with his girlfriend. We kept talking about this idea that you can't love somebody until you love yourself.

As I was looking at the songs, I realized how important music has played a role in healing and making me feel good about myself. I always tell people, you can't listen to your favorite song and then feel worse afterwards. You either feel the same, better, or exponentially better. So that became the new theme, which was self-love. And this isn't really an album about just love songs, but there are so many different facets.

The most important relationship we have to have is with ourselves, especially as artists. We're on stage or on social media, and we're getting criticized all the time. This relationship is the only one that's going to get us through this industry, or whatever industry you're in. So that became the new theme, and it kind of evolved over time. I think that's the beauty of music and art is it walks itself in many ways.

Ramin Karimloo and Nicole Scherzinger are both on Broadway this season, and you worked with them on this incredible rendition of El Tango de Roxanne from Moulin Rouge. How did that collaboration come together? 

Nicole and I have been best friends for a really long time, but we never did a song together. It happened very last minute because this version of El Tango de Roxanne was originally for Renée Fleming, the opera singer. It was originally going to be very operatic, and last minute, Renée couldn't do it.

Nicole and I were having Thanksgiving together, and I said, "Oh, I don't know if I can put out this song because my soprano dropped out." And then she was like, "Should I do it?" And then when I played her the song, she wanted to listen to the whole album. I played her almost the entire album that night, and she was like, "I want to do it." She was super excited, and on her one hour off between shows, she came to the studio and recorded it. It was incredible.

Nicole and Ramin had worked together, and she loved him. And one of my producers, Nick Patrick, had a relationship with Ramin. He invited him to the studio, and that's how that came about. It was so perfect because it wasn't really supposed to be Broadway singers singing. That happened very serendipitously.

You’ve tapped into Broadway with the song, obviously. Is musical theatre a space you could see yourself exploring more in the future?

Oh my gosh, absolutely. I've been talking about doing a Broadway musical forever. I always wanted to write for Broadway. JoJo, who is on the album, I met when I went to see her in Moulin Rouge! I absolutely love Broadway. I love the songs, the hard work, the grit. I have so much respect for the art and the people. If you can do Broadway, you can do anything!

And one great thing about Broadway is also that there are many different sounds you can explore, which gives you so much freedom, I would think, when writing an original piece for the stage.

It's like classical music in that way. It has so many different layers and sounds. And you can see that the audience is changing too, even from 10 years ago. They are getting younger and more diverse. One of my first Broadway collaborations was the reopening after COVID. I played piano on New York State of Mind with a bunch of Broadway artists, which we shot at the Steinway factory here in Queens. It was so amazing.

I know you are very passionate about arts education, and you use your platforms like TikTok and Instagram to answer questions about and just bring a general awareness to classical music. What do you feel is the biggest gap in understanding about music? What might you encourage young people to do to begin building their knowledge? 

I think one of the biggest misconceptions about learning an instrument is that you have to be talented or smart or want to become a musician. It's like, just because you don't want to be a mathematician, should you not learn calculus? Or if you don't want to become a professional athlete, should you never exercise?

I think people look at the arts as a kind of extracurricular thing. The learning of an instrument, I believe, should be part of the core curriculum and should be as important as math, science, and literature. Social media has become a way where you can connect with that younger audience and show them different approaches, either by playing a cover, or wearing a different outfit, or offering cute tricks to get them engaged. I think that's such a cool thing for classical music. As artists, we've never before had a platform like this where we can showcase ourselves to a bigger audience.

I'm always focused on how to make kids more excited. I truly believe that music education is the one thing we have that can create a better society in one generation. You see music programs implemented in communities throughout the world, and there is a drastic change in that community. All of a sudden, community and family members are coming together and are proud of this concert. They don't sound like the New York Philharmonic, but they are coming together to create this nucleus and safe space, and community. You can't put a monetary value on that. People don't realize how important a tool it is in shaping society. We have to do whatever we can to get the younger kids to Broadway or a concert hall.

Listen to her most recent single below, also featuring Broadway alum Joanna "JoJo" Levesque.

Photo credit: Peter Ash Lee