Interviews

Inspired by years of watching elite piano competitions with her mother, Nicole Conn crafted Descending Thirds as an emotionally charged exploration of ambition, artistry, and identity. Set against the intense backdrop of competitive classical music, the story dives into the psychological and emotional cost of greatness, where love and obsession intertwine. Deeply personal, the project also serves as a tribute to her mother — whose influence shaped both the musical heart of the novel and its powerful emotional core.

Nicole, Descending Thirds is such a rich, emotionally layered story. What first inspired you to set it within the world of elite piano competitions?

Long before I ever wrote Descending Thirds, my mother, Christa Hoven, trained as a classical pianist before later becoming a piano teacher. Together we spent years devouring videotapes of the legendary Van Cliburn International Piano Competition. I would often buy one or two new Cliburn tapes for birthdays or Christmas, and we would lose ourselves in the breathtaking performances, emotional volatility, artistic triumphs, and impossible pressure these young musicians faced competing at the highest level.

Those evenings became far more than a shared love of music; they became the emotional foundation for the novel and the inspiration behind the fictional International Ketterling Piano Competition that thrusts Alexandra and Sebastian into this brutal, intoxicating world where one performance can alter the trajectory of an entire life. I became fascinated not only by the artistry, but by the psychology of ambition, obsession, discipline, and the emotional cost of greatness. But the best part is how this contest informs about two of the three main characters.

Alexandra is caught between two very different brothers. How did you approach building that dynamic and emotional tension at the heart of the novel?

I never wanted the triangle to feel superficial or rooted in simple romantic competition. Sebastian and Conrad represent profoundly different kinds of connection, desire, artistry, and emotional danger. Sebastian is charismatic, seductive, a “finger-proud” performer. Conrad is quieter, almost frighteningly gifted, deeply internal, and emotionally exposed through his music in ways he could never articulate otherwise.

Alexandra is not simply choosing between two men — she is choosing between two versions of herself and two very different futures. What fascinated me was how love can awaken entirely different emotional identities within us depending on who sees us, challenges us, or truly understands us. The emotional tension comes from the fact that both relationships are real, devastating, and transformative in completely different ways.

The themes of ambition, obsession, and artistic sacrifice run deep. What do you hope readers take away about the true cost of greatness?

I think greatness is often romanticized from the outside. We see the performance, the applause, the transcendence — but we rarely see the loneliness, fear, pressure, isolation, and emotional brutality underneath it. Especially in elite artistic worlds where identity becomes inseparable from achievement.

What interested me most was exploring what happens when love, ambition, artistry, sensuality, and emotional survival all collide at once. The novel asks whether extraordinary talent is ultimately a gift, a burden, or perhaps both simultaneously. And whether the pursuit of greatness can coexist peacefully with intimacy, emotional wholeness, and real human connection.

The audiobook sounds incredibly immersive, almost cinematic. What was the vision behind integrating original compositions and classical pieces into the storytelling?

I wanted the audiobook to become something much larger than a traditional narration experience. Since music is the emotional bloodstream of Descending Thirds, I desperately wanted listeners — especially those unfamiliar with classical music — to actually hear the beauty, longing, passion, and emotional devastation the characters were experiencing throughout the story.

The audiobook includes over seventy licensed classical musical snippets woven directly into the narration, along with original compositions created specifically for the novel by composer Sally Bishop Melbourne. The extraordinary multi-award winning Mary Jane Wells narrated and produced the audiobook, and together we approached it almost like creating a film for the ears. The goal was immersion — allowing listeners not just to imagine the music, but to emotionally live inside it. And because I love this music so much I wanted to introduce it to those not familiar to the fabulous repertoire of classical music.

This project is also deeply personal, especially with your connection to your mother. How did that relationship shape the emotional core of the book?

The relationship between mothers and daughters lives deeply inside this story. My mother introduced me to classical music almost from birth, and it became part of the emotional language of our relationship. Many of the themes in Descending Thirds — love, expectation, discipline, sacrifice, longing, artistry, emotional inheritance — were shaped by that bond.

In many ways, writing the novel became an exploration of how parents unknowingly pass both their gifts and their wounds forward. My mother’s love of music became my love of music. Her emotional world became intertwined with mine creatively. By the time I finished the audiobook, which included several of my mother’s own piano performances woven into the score, the project had become profoundly personal. She passed away two days after its release, so Descending Thirds now feels not only like my most personal work creatively, but also a kind of emotional love letter to her.