How a Pop Pianist Spends Her Sundays

Chloe Flower first came to New York City when she was 12. She was with her parents, and she had one question for them: “Why didn’t you bring me sooner?”

She came because she had been accepted into the Manhattan School of Music. Since she was 2 years old she had loved to play the piano, which would eventually take her to the Grammy Awards stage to perform alongside the rapper Cardi B.

“When I got here, I thought, ‘Where has this city been my whole life?’” said Ms. Flower, 39.

She grew up in Mechanicsburg, Pa., a borough of under 10,000 people about two hours west of Philadelphia. Her main hangout spot with her friends was a gas-station parking lot.

“I feel super lucky that I grew up surrounded by nature, but sonically and visually, New York was a new level of inspiration,” she said. “At the start, I even loved Times Square.”

Ms. Flower signed her first record deal in 2010, and she spent the next decade appearing on songs with a wide range of artists, from the rapper Nas to Celine Dion. She wrote the scores for short films, documentaries, commercials and even a Netflix comedy special. But her big breakthrough came in 2019 when she performed “Money” with Cardi B on a rhinestone-studded piano at the Grammys. Two years later, she released her self-titled debut album.

“It was a dream to have that kind of stage to perform classical music,” she said. “Afterward, I got so many messages from kids telling me that they were starting to take piano lessons. To me, learning an instrument and learning how to make music can change not just a person, but also a family and even society.”