Evento

The Sonicals Piano Duo featuring George Lopez and Joel Martin

Since meeting in 2016 as faculty members at Sonata Camp in VT and collaborating in an impromptu concert where there were two pianos, but no Piano Duo music, George Lopez and Joel A. Martin, have been reinventing music for two pianos with informed improvisation that redefines the chamber music experience.

Lopez, who was born in Brooklyn to Mayan parents, and raised in Belize, studied piano in Amsterdam and Paris and has been featured across the globe as recitalist and soloist with orchestra, and collaborated with ensembles including the Emerson String Quartet. Currently, he is artist-in-residence at Bowdoin College in Maine.

At 17, Joel Martin was the youngest pianist ever, and the first African American, to compete in the 1985 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition. He has appeared as soloist with major orchestras, including the NY Philharmonic. The creator of Jazzical®, a marriage of classical and jazz, Martin has collaborated with and/or written music for Grammy® Award-winners Kathleen Battle, Fergie, Brooklyn Youth Chorus, and cellist Eugene Friesen of the Paul Winter Consort. In 2016, he received critical acclaim for an appearance with Ms. Battle at the Met.

Program:

S. Rachmaninoff Études-Tableaux, (selected)

J.S. Bach Italian Concerto BWV 971

F. Chopin Preludes, (selected)

Carnaval Sonicals (adapted from Schumann's piano cycle Carnaval, Op. 9)