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Duke Arts Presents

Shai Wosner & Orion Weiss
Two Pianos

Saturday, November 9, 2019 | 8:00 pm

Piano Recital Series

Baldwin Auditorium


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Shai Wosner and Orion Weiss, fellow alumni of Emanuel Ax’s piano studio at Juilliard, present a rare four-hand piano concert at Baldwin Auditorium. Both pianists are internationally recognized for combining technical mastery and intellectual curiosity, offering a unique chance to hear the duo perform with “virtuosity, determination, and an infectious glee” (The New York Times).

Wosner and Weiss have curated a program combining nineteenth-century masters with a modern star. David Lang’s gravity meditates in the space between falling and landing, each moment a postponement of resolution; after gravity, also by Lang, who won the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for Music, instead floats into the surreal, still with no landing in sight. In Schubert’s “Grand Duo” — perhaps the pinnacle of the four-hand repertoire — the quicksilver themes constantly mutate. Brahms’ Sonata in F Minor for Two Pianos is an adaptation of his masterpiece, the Piano Quintet in F Minor; at the advice of his friend Joachim, Brahms rewrote the quintet for two pianos, the result being a formidable and worthy challenge to Wosner and Weiss.

Program

David Lang: gravity for Two Pianos

Schubert: Sonata in C Major for Two Pianos (“Grand Duo”), D. 812

David Lang: after gravity for Two Pianos

Brahms: Sonata in F Minor for Two Pianos, op. 34bis



Shai Wosner 'Schubert’s Final Sonatas'


“Wosner is a superb pianist, who plays without any mooning or showboating, only tightly focused concentration.”

The Washington Post