A chance meeting with Amanda Palmer has led to the chance of a lifetime for Berklee summer student and Saratoga Springs, NY-based pianist Tristan Allen. Walking home from a rehearsal in late August, Palmer met a group of Berklee summer students on the last day of the college’s five-week program. She decided to take a picture of three teens who were hugging on a bench. They obliged, and as she walked away, one of the teens, Allen, ran up after her, having been told “she plays cabaret piano music.” When Palmer informed him she was in the Dresden Dolls, Allen was shocked — he had been a fan of the band for ages — and asked if she’d be interested in hearing his original piano music.

With no practice spaces available, Palmer said, “My house is six blocks away. I have a piano. Let’s go there.” So they did. Allen performed, and his music so impressed Palmer that she asked him if she could webcast to her fans on the spot. For the next hour, he played original compositions and improvisations for Palmer’s online fanbase (over 450,000 Twitter followers), insuring that many would witness the event.

“The minute I saw him play the piano, I was mesmerized,” said Palmer. “He reminded me a lot of myself when I was younger. The fact that he had the guts to ask me if he could play his music for me, right there on the street, was what sold me. I thought: ‘This kid totally has what it takes to make it.'”

The response was ecstatic and demand for Allen’s music was such that Palmer invited him to a studio a few weeks later to record a five-song self-titled EP. It was funded directly from her fanbase using Kickstarter, generating over $8,000 in 48 hours. The EP, recorded in September in Boston with engineer Owen Curtin, includes four of Allen’s compositions and one four-handed piano duet, “János vs. Wonderland,” that Palmer and Allen wrote together and recorded exclusively for the album.

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