Ask Greg & Liz: Personal

 

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Dear Greg & Liz,

Are you two personally involved, or is it strictly professional?

- Mike C

 

Dear Mike,

 

We love each other as friends, and that's the extent of it. The nature of our personal relationship (Greg is gay and Liz is straight) is very convenient, preventing romantic issues from complicating our artistic relationship. It also prevents our rehearsals (and performances, for that matter!) from disintegrating into lust-filled activities. Phew!

 

However, we don't like to say our artistic collaboration is "strictly professional" because that sounds so dry and severe. At the heart of our piano duo is an amazing friendship (not a "strictly professional relationship"), and we hope this radiates through whatever we do -- our performances, our compositions and arrangements, our videos, and our albums. For us, art is about human interactions, and our friendship helps remind us of this significance.

 

- Greg & Liz

 

Dear Greg & Liz,

I love your guy's playing. You inspired me to write a duet! So how long did it take you to write Libertango? Did you guys just sit down one day and say, "Let's rewrite a song," or what? I JUST bought the Browns' new CD [with Greg's compositions and arrangements] by the way. Love your vids!

Austin

 

Dear Austin,

 

Thanks for all your kind words! It's always nice to hear that other people love watching and listening to us as much as we love playing together.

 

"What prompted us to start 're-writing' music?" The answer isn't so simple, but it stems from a desire to take a piece and make it our own. Sometimes we re-imagine music to help keep that which we love relevant to audiences today. Sometimes we do it because there isn't much music our there that suits our distinct style. Sometimes we do it to showcase our personal strengths. Sometimes to give audiences a sense of our personal relationship with the music. Sometimes it's the simple desire to perform music not originally intended for piano that leads us to arrange music. Read our notes on transcriptions for even more thoughts on this matter.

 

"How long does it take to compose our music?" The Libertango arrangement was created pretty hastily. We started writing on a Sunday, started practicing the next Thursday, and we performed it two days later, on Saturday. Our Star Wars Fantasy is essentially an original composition based on a few familiar themes, and as such, it took much, much longer to compose. We started composing in February of 2006, didn't sleep for two months, and finished composing the piece on the day of the performance in early April that same year. Greg will tell you that composing (and arranging) for five pianos takes even longer. His Fantasia on "Dives and Lazarus" took six solid months to compose!

 

Be sure to watch for our CD release (featuring many of our original compositions and arrangements!) later this November!

 

- Greg & Liz

 

Dear Greg & Liz,

I just wonder if you are lovers! :D

Terry

 

Dear Terry,

 

Thanks for your inquiry. It warrants an answer of equal perspicacity, so we decided to have an external source help us respond.

 

Our friend:

 

Greg and Liz’s decision to not become lovers was a long and arduous one. It began once over sushi, when Liz was trying to decide whether she was attracted to salmon or other women. Either one would have presented a problem for their romantic involvement. Later, over pizza, long after she had decided that her attraction lay neither with scaled or breasted creatures, Greg wondered whether his own feelings lay with anchovies or with other men. These attractions, too, would naturally exclude Liz from his little black book. The short answer is, part A: that Liz is straight, vegetarian, and drop dead gorgeous; part B: that Greg is gay, vegetarian, and drop dead gorgeous.

 

By the way, do you really think we'd get anything done if we were romantic lovers?

 

We spend hours rehearsing together: that’s hours upon hours laying our souls bare with our appendages intertwined. I mean, you’ve seen our videos. With any other couple, who knows what that would lead to… Most of the time, our rapturous gazing leads to hysterical laughter, not sexual frustration!

 

Thanks for listening to our music!

 

- Greg & Liz

Dear Greg & Liz,

Have you ever tried a piece like this together? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BcV19rylSZc

 

Dear anonymous,

 

It's unlikely that you'll find that in our repertoire any time soon, although it is admittedly very funny! Our performing style and our mission as performers are a bit different from those of Victor Borge. While we enjoy humor and wild pianistic effects, we tend not to introduce either into our music unless it can be used to serve our mission (to demonstrate that classical piano music can serve as a relevant and powerful force in society). For example, when we use humor in our concerts, it is often to comment on contemporary events, as seen in our New Depiction of the Carnival of the Animals or in our latest YouTube video. Likewise, when we find ourselves tangled up at the piano, it is usually due to two reasons: one, to visually represent the dance-like or romantic character of the music, and two, because there is no other way to create the musical effect.

 

We like to find ways to make our concerts entertaining, uplifiting, humorous, provocative, contemporary, and deeply moving. In other words, we like to find ways to represent the full spectrum of the human experience.

 

- Greg & Liz

 

Dear Greg & Liz,

Have you ever tried Chopin's etudes Op. 10, No. 8 and Op. 10, No. 5? Who are your favorite composers? Have you ever tried Satie's "Le Belle Excentrique" from the Grand Ritournelle?

Malechi

 

Dear Malechi,

 

We both play quite a few Chopin etudes, including the two you mentioned. Tricky little finger busters, aren't they?

 

Favorite composers? Hmmm.... It's really so difficult to limit oneself to just a few "favorite" composers when there are so many whose music never ceases to move us. Not to mention, we both try to listen for the beauty and expression in whatever it is we're listening to, whether it be Palestrina, Donizetti, or Coldplay. Greg's favorites change from mood to mood; presently Bach, Mozart, Mendelssohn, Tchaikovsky, Prokofiev, and Sigur Ros top the list. Liz's list includes Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, the Beatles, Ravel, Radiohead, and loads more.

 

As for Satie's "Le Belle Excentrique," we have yet to add it to our repertoire. We do, however, perform a surprising amount of Satie's music on our concerts, usually in our own "Anderson & Roe" way.

 

- Greg & Liz

 

Dear Greg & Liz,

Are you proficient in any other instruments?

Scott Ouellette

 

Dear Scott,

 

Greg began playing both the violin and piano when he was eight. He quit the piano when he was 12 so he could spend more time on the violin, but he cried so much that his teachers and parents quickly realized "that was a bad idea." When he went to Juilliard six years later (as a pianist), he quit the violin. It was never easy deciding between the two, and Greg was known to enter (and win) competitions playing both instruments.

 

Liz began playing violin at age five and turned to piano a few months later. She hasn't turned back ... although she has been known to conduct a little on the side. She has also recently made her performance debut on the harpsichord, celesta, and harmonium.

 

Thanks for asking!

 

- Greg & Liz