a black and white photo, by francie seidl chodosh, of anna roberts-gevalt. Anna, a white person with light hair with bangs and shoulder length hair, sits leaning against the wall. She stares directly at the camera, in a button up shirt, holding a cane in their hand. In the mirror, the photographer is partially glimpsed, blurry, behind a large camera.Anna RG works in composition, performance, drawing and community organizing, towards possibilities of sick and disabled music making and listening. She most recently presented Sick Music Center at Recess Art, an installation, library and community music center, which held a study group for disabled and sick musicians, workshops and performances in access and music. In 2025, they were artist-in-residence at Issue Project Room, investigating ideas of access, illness, and ableism through the sounds of air purifier, and scores written for musicians in bed.
For a decade, she toured with a research-based ballad project, Anna & Elizabeth, their Smithsonian Folkways album called a “radical expansion of what folk songs are supposed to do” by The New Yorker. She has performed at Carnegie Hall, Big Ears Festival (where she was a guest curator of traditional music), NPR’s Tiny Desk, and collaborated widely as a performer, including with the Aizuri Quartet, Lonnie Holley, Paul Wiancko (Kronos), Funto Omojola, Lu Yim, Kiera Bono, Amina Ross, Jim White, and the dearly departed Susan Alcorn, and has won blue ribbons in fiddle and banjo contests across Appalachia. They hold an MFA in sculpture from Bard College, is a MacDowell Fellow, and has exhibited at Tulca Festival (Galway). She volunteers with AIRNYC, which operates a lending library of community-owned air purifiers.