Southwest Sojourn, Part I

It's Liz again, hoping all of you are enjoying the start of the summer. Greg and I are in the outskirts of Salt Lake City, savoring the blindingly blue skies, awe-inspiring vistas, and wonderful hospitality of the Brown family (our best friends). We're winding down after a busy stint at the Gina Bachauer International Piano Festival, where we performed three times: on June 20 we presented the festival's opening concert on two pianos; on June 21 we gave a four-hand/one-piano recital; and on June 23 we were involved in a piece for six pianos (yes, six). All the concerts took place at the Rose Wagner Performing Arts Center in downtown Salt Lake City.

In our first concert, we performed our trademark transcriptions of Danse macabre and Erbarme Dich as well as our new 50-minute composition based on Carnival of the Animals. We especially loved the audience's ebullient response to the Carnival. The audience roared with laughter at all the right places, understood the musical allusions, and clapped after each movement. Consequently Greg and I felt extra-energized to pull out all the stops performance-wise, and we had a ball. When we and our listeners have fun, it feels like a job well done!

Carnival at Yamaha Artist Services

Hey! It's Greg here. Liz has had a persistent cold (that honey needs to sleep!), and so I agreed to take over to report on our latest concert.

This concert should have been an awesome event, but thanks to a very sore throat, stormy weather, an unnecessarily long concert (3+ hours...), and strange acoustics, it was nothing short of a struggle. To make matters worse, the pianos were not dovetailed. Instead, they were placed tail to tail to fit the strange stage set-up. Usually Liz and I sit a full 10-11 feet apart, but last night we were stationed a massive 20 feet apart of one another. It was like we were screaming to each other across an energy-zapping chasm, and any hopes for intimate, conversational two-piano playing disappeared in the black-hole between us.

Alas!

Nevertheless, we had fun, and we were extremely appreciative to see (and hear) Keats, David, Melody, Casey, Charles, and TJ in the audience!

- Greg

Cabaret at The Rep

It's Greg here, commenting on our latest concert in Milwaukee, Wisconsin - an awesome cabaret-style event with an awesome audience! We were so fortunate to premiere our new depiction of Saint-Saens' zoological fantasy in a theatrical setting populated with joyous listeners.

Our latest composition is a completely new take on Saint-Saëns' Carnival of the Animals. This is not the Carnival of the Animals you heard in your third grade music class, even though it's based on some of the familiar melodies from the original score (in addition to a whole lot more). The piece attempts to go beyond a simple musical depiction of animals; in fact, it has more to say about humans than anything else...

The premiere went remarkably well, considering the rush to compose and prepare it in time. Yes, there were a few lost notes here and there, but we compensated with our characteristic first-performance adrenaline and spontaneity. I am, nonetheless, quite embarrassed to confess that I completely lost it when Liz began speaking in a pseudo-European accent during the text to "Homo pianisticus!" "Keep a straight face, Greg! Keep a straight face!"

If we learned one thing performing at The Rep in Milwaukee, however, it was this: don't let your audience select and arrange a portion of your program for you. In theory, it was a great idea – it allowed audience members to interact with us and it gave them a say in the shape and content of the program. But in practice, the results can be downright merciless to the performers!

Audience members were given a ballot to fill out during the first half of the concert.

"Please vote for three of the following works. The three or four pieces to receive the highest number of votes will be performed by the Anderson & Roe Piano Duo during the second half of the program."

What did the audience choose? The fastest, most technically challenging pieces on the list! Do we blame them? Of course not! Is it physically possible to follow the first impression from our Star Wars Fantasy with the "Dance of the Earth" from The Rite of Spring and our arrangement of Piazzolla's Libertango? Well, barely!

Regardless, the "Audience Votes" section of our concert kept us on our toes, and we were sure to conclude the concert with an unhurried encore.


If you were in attendance, let us know what you thought!