Two heads, four hands and Lizst on Duo Pianos

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Claire Aebersold and Ralph Neiweem, Chicago Duo Piano Festival founders/directors and Music Institute faculty piano duo in residence.

Updated: July 8, 2011 9:08AM

Two heads are better than one and four hands top two any day.

That’s the idea behind the Music Institute of Chicago’s duo piano festival set for the institute’s Evanston campus July 8 to 17.

Some 60 pianists, including duo-pairs from throughout the United States and overseas, are enrolled and will enjoy private and group coaching by professionals, as well as performance opportunities. The festival also includes three public concerts, one featuring husband and wife team Claire Aebersold and Ralph Neiweem, MIC faculty members who founded the Chicago Duo Piano Festival in 1988.

“Our first festival was really a workshop, with just about 15 participants,” Neiweem explained, “and there was no air conditioning!”

Cool sounds

But during the first five years it became a true festival, and once the 500-seat Nichols Concert Hall opened in 2003 possibilities became even greater. “It was a big opportunity for us” he continued. And the hall is completely air-conditioned.

The 2011 festival is taking its theme from one of the most legendary pianists and composers in Western classical music.

“This is the 200th anniversary of the birth of Franz Liszt,” said Aebersold, referring to the 19th century Hungarian composer and virtuoso pianist, whose vast popularity made him the rock star of his day. “He was inspired to become a virtuoso after he heard Paganini, the great violin virtuoso,” she added.

He also enjoyed four-hand pieces, she explained, frequently playing with such professionals as Clara Schumann and his more advanced pupils.

“There are transcriptions for four-hands of his orchestral pieces,” she continued, “plus his ‘Don Juan’ fantasy for two pianos using themes from Mozart’s opera ‘Don Giovanni,’ which we will play during the festival. Liszt loved the sound of 20 fingers.’”

The public concerts at Nichols Concert Hall, start July 8 with the performance of Italian husband and wife piano duo Elisabetta Dessi and Francesco Giammarco performing four-hand transcriptions of works by Liszt, including Legends of Saint Elisabeth and the Mephisto Waltzes No. 1 and 2, which were originally composed for orchestra, but later arranged for four hands.

Aeersold and Neiweem will present “Mozartiana” on July 12, playing Mozart’s Sonata in D Major for Two Pianos, K. 488 and two piano transcriptions of Mozart’s music by Busoni and others, as well as Liszt’s previously mentioned Liszt’s “Don Juan” Fantasy.

The festival concludes with a Duo Piano Extravaganza on Friday, July 15. Members of MIC’s faculty and staff will perform four-hand and two-piano works. Performers include Aebersold and Neiweem, Maya Brodotskaya, Alexander Djordjevic, Irene Faliks, Elaine Felder, Mark George, Matthew Hagle, Brenda Huang, Mio Isoda, Katherine Lee, Soo Young Lee, Sung Mo, Milana Pavchinskaya, and Fiona Queen.

Faculty members Elaine Felder and Milana Pavchinskaya began playing together about four years ago. “We’d both done some four-hand playing, but we were at an adult piano camp and we found we had a real affinity for playing together,” Felder said. “We will be playing two pianos — there is more elbow room that way.”

The socialization and the exchange of ideas are part of the fun, she continued. “These days we are seeing more and more pianists wanted to do chamber music, whether two piano or as part of a trio or quartet.”

Playing with friends

“Playing piano is a solitary existence,” admitted Mark George, president and CEO of the Music Institute of Chicago, who is also a pianist. “I relish any time I can play piano with my collegues. It creates an participatory experience.”

He laughed and added, “It should, you’re bumping into each other on the piano bench.”

Scratch an arts administrator and you often find a musician. In addition to George, Fiona Queen, director of the institute’s performance activities, is a skilled pianist. On the July 15 program the two plan to play a four-hand arrangement of a string quartet by Beethoven. “We played an arrangement of Prokofiev’s ‘Petrushka’ last year,” he said.

The husband and wife are regarded as one of the top duo piano teams of the last century.

“I would like MIC and Chicago to be known as the home of one of the great international duo piano festivals,” said George.

To that end the Music Institute aims to launch its first international duo-piano competition by 2015, he said.

Aebersold and Neiweem will continue to celebrate the Liszt year with a program at 8 p.m. Oct. 3 at Nichols Concert Hall, which will be broadcast live on WFMT, as well as a performance in the WFMT studio at 8 p.m. Dec. 12.