Event

Duo Noire, guitars

DUO NOIRE is an innovative classical guitar ensemble that is breaking new ground through their genre-bending programming choices, first-rate premieres, and their startlingly original transcriptions & arrangements. Consisting of the pioneering American classical guitarists Thomas Flippin & Christopher Mallett, Duo Noire has been hailed as a "virtuosic pair" and has performed across the world in distinguished venues such as the Norfolk Music Festival, the 92nd Street Y, Peking University (Beijing), the Times Center, and the St. Louis Classical Guitar Society as recurring Artists-in-Residence.

Their debut album, Figments, consisted of "a substantial piece...recorded in crystalline sound" (Soundboard), which was written for them by the award-winning Juilliard professor Raymond Lustig. Praised for its "impressive technique...Flippin and Mallett definitely don't disappoint" (I Care if You Listen) ," the album has been broadcast on WNYC, WQXR, and Radio Arts Foundation St. Louis. Additionally, the duo has been featured in articles by Acoustic Guitar Magazine, Classical Guitar Magazine, Gendai Guitar, and on the cover of the Guitar Foundation of America's quarterly journal Soundboard.

In 2015 the duo began their "Women of Guitar Commissioning Project," to remedy the lack of gender diversity in classical guitar repertoire. Made possible through funding from the Diller-Quaile School of Music where Flippin is on faculty, Duo Noire is commissioning some of the most talented female composers of their generation to write for two guitars, including Drs. Courtney Bryan and Clarice Assad. The project will culminate in a full length album in 2017.