Sandra Tsing Loh

Sandra Tsing Loh is best known as a performance artist and as journalist on the topic of L.A. lifestyles. She appears weekly on NPR as a commentator and has authored several books, including Aliens in America and Depth Takes a Holiday: Essays From Lesser Los Angeles.

Sandra Tsing Loh is also an accomplished jazz pianist and composer. While her work in this vein does not have the same high public profile as her written word, it is certainly no less accomplished. Her disc Pianovision is semi-improvisational, intensely rhythmic, and betrays a wide range of moods and influences, but it is not derivative. Loh favors bittersweet melodic ideas that are sometimes harmonized by dark, jagged, and menacing textures, and at other times by a bright and sunny outlook that is reminiscent of L.A.; its perpetually warm climate and conflicting range of personalities. Apart from Pianovision, Loh has also scored documentary films and has presented concerts of her music in a semi-classical or performance-art context.