Rising Pittsburgh artist Gloria Nyambura Mwarage talks about her love of music

It is a surprisingly warm afternoon in late January when Gloria Nyambura Mwarage, also known by her stage name GNM, walks into Field Day cafe in Lawrenceville.

Mwarage’s peaceful aura complements the nature-esque atmosphere of the café, complete with monstera leaves and other plants in the space.

Her voice flows with the smoothness of honey and a slight raspiness that lets you know her vocals have rounded out notes and reached different ranges.

She was born and raised in Kenya and then moved to Queens, N.Y., at age 8 with her family.

“I meet people from Pittsburgh, and I love Pittsburgh, but they say it is not diverse in the way that a New York City is. I never really understood that until I moved away from New York,” said Mwarage, who now lives in Homestead.

Mwarage, 24, always wanted to be a musician.

“Music and art really came into my life when I moved to the U.S.,” she said. “As a family, we were so caught up in surviving and that was not the priority at the time. When we moved here and my mother got a better job, it gave us the leeway to explore ourselves.”

Mwarage was responsible for her art education as her parents focused on the fundamentals. Her music education began on YouTube when she was 8, looking up videos and teaching herself. She received more formal training playing the flute and clarinet at Saint Francis Preparatory School in Queens. She said Prince and Janet Jackson are her ultimate inspirations.

“For Prince to be that kind of artist to be so developed, just have it flowing through you must be amazing,” she said. “The things that Janet Jackson has done for Black female entertainers opened so many doors. It wasn’t until her, I feel, that Black women could be put on the forefront, and not just a certain type of Black woman but all Black women could be accepted.”

But her transition from high school to Carnegie Mellon University as an engineering major was hard, and one that even inspired her first album, “Search For Home,” which debuted in 2022.

“Growing up I wanted to be a musician. My parents were immigrants and wanted me to have a stable foundation first,” she said.

“At first I was really scared and suffering from imposter syndrome.”

She said college was tough at first — it was a very rigorous academic environment with a lot of competition.

“Until I started doing what I really loved, which was audio production and music, that is when I really started getting into my flow,” Mwarage said.

Now she is one half of the flute and guitar duo GLO-TREE, playing a Stratocaster guitar. She met the other half of the duo, Trē Seguritan Abalos, at The Open Improvisational Lab presented by the Pittsburgh Sound Preserve.

“I really vividly remember Gloria’s first time at the lab. What she came up with was really really cool, it was one of those moments of like, who is this?” said Seguritan Abalos, 26.

Seguritan Abalos is from San Jose, Calif. The two began playing together about a month after meeting. “Something about the way we improvised together really meshed,” Seguritan Abalos said.

Seguritan Abalos said the duo name captures an ambient, free-flowing glowing kind of sound. “It can be really vague and strange, but also beautiful in the most organic way,” Seguritan Abalos said.

Mwarage played her own set for the first time in the summer of 2023, comprised of a mixture of her own songs and a few covers.

“Gloria has a very clear and striking vision of the artist that she is and wants to continue to grow to be and the sounds she wants to make,” Seguritan-Abalos said. “It’s inspiring.”

The duo is working on their first EP, which they began recording at the beginning of February. They plan to produce it with Herman Pearl, who may be better known as Soy Sos, a local producer. They have a residency beginning in the spring with Pearl.

Mwarage categorizes her music style as modern electronic pop.

When she makes music, it is transcendent. “It feels like there is no time when it is happening. I’m not getting in the way of myself — it feels like just a stream of stuff coming out,” she said. “It’s magic, creating freely when it is at its best.”

Her second album, “Manufactured Edge” was released in 2023.

“It’s about the heaviness you feel from wanting more even though you have what is considered on paper the ideal life — and then trying to find yourself again after doing the whole self-discovery,” she said. “I hope people can listen to the songs and relate to them.”

Mwarage is now getting to meet other musicians who have an insatiable desire for music and creativity like her. She has dubbed Pittsburgh the next big art city.

“I don’t think I would be able to do anything else, at the end of the day I would be so sad,” she said.” It’s just what I love to do. I can’t be without it.”

Glo Tree will perform at 9:30 p.m. Feb. 24 at the Bantha Tea Bar, 5002 Penn Ave. in Bloomfield.