Concertnova’s Brianna Matzke Channels Her Diagnosis into Creative Spark

Brianna Matzke is multitalented. She’s a concert pianist who has performed around the world, an entrepreneur, a professor of music and an administrator. In August, Matzke was named executive director of Cincinnati-based Concertnova. The new-music ensemble was founded in 2006 by Ixi Chen, a clarinetist in the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, who has served as its managing co-artistic director and board member with her husband, Ted Nelson, a former CSO cellist. Nelson is now vice president of artistic planning at the Dayton Performing Arts Alliance. Matzke’s accomplishments haven’t come easily. She recently was diagnosed with essential tremor, a neurological condition that has caused her hands to shake uncontrollably for decades.