Apple Orange Pair in Florida!

Fort Lauderdale from the air!

Fort Lauderdale from the air!

While we didn’t get to go to the beach, we nonetheless enjoyed our quick weekend trip to Fort Lauderdale. It was an honor to be invited to perform on Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church’s Sunday afternoon concert series, and CRPC’s organist Chelsea Chen was a fabulous host.

with Chelsea Chen at Coral Ridge

with Chelsea Chen at Coral Ridge

Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church, for those unfamiliar with it, is known around the US (and outside the US) for hosting world-class musical events, as well as employing world-class artists. Diane Bish, “the first lady of the organ” who popularized organ music on TV through her program “The Joy of Music,” served for many years as organist in residence at CRPC. It was truly an honor to be invited to perform a full-length concert at this very large, very well-known church in south Florida!

Inside Coral Ridge Presbyterian's main sanctuary

Inside Coral Ridge Presbyterian’s main sanctuary

Coral Ridge's famous 300-foot tower

Coral Ridge’s famous 300-foot tower

As you can see, the sanctuary is enormous! The church is equally renowned for its unique architectural style as it is for its music. Due to acoustics and the small nature of our group (only two instruments and no organ!), we performed our concert in the smaller chapel.

Apple Orange Pair performing in Coral Ridge's chapel

Apple Orange Pair performing in Coral Ridge’s chapel

We were impressed at how large our audience was, even though we were in a smaller space, and we even got to meet some young harpists who heard about our concert thanks to the Harp Column and their private teachers!

With young musicians from the audience!

With young musicians from the audience!

The day before our concert, when we weren’t rehearsing, we ventured into Coral Gables nearer Miami to get a taste of south Florida living. Colleen had picked up a last-minute gig at the Biltmore to cover for a friend who was getting married that weekend. It was super fun to put on a fancy dress and play a historic gold Lyon and Healy harp (from 1915) for the tea at the Biltmore for a few hours! Afterwards, we met up with a friend from Connecticut Summerfest who happened to be in Miami the same weekend and we explored the local taco scene. Delicious!

Colleen subbing for tea at the Biltmore

Colleen subbing for tea at the Biltmore

As you can see, we had a great time in Florida. We hope to be back again some day soon!

Central Connecticut State University in January

We are fresh off an invigorating week of working with three very talented student composers at CCSU! It is always a whirlwind experience to learn and workshop entirely new music, and we spent a good amount of our “winter break” between the fall and spring teaching semesters learning, editing, and collaborating long-distance not only with each other but with each composer. It was such a delight to finally meet the composers at CCSU this week! Their pieces were all very different in a way that made for an exciting program. We were also thrilled to perform with CCSU horn professor Barbara Hill; thanks to Barbara for joining us for Nate Pawelek’s two-horns one-harp piece!

With CCSU music faculty and student composers

With CCSU music faculty and student composers. Pictured left to right: Brian Kershner, Ethan Sadoian, Nathaniel Schull, June Violet Aino, Charles Menoche

Enjoy these pictures from the open rehearsal and concert! We will also be posting videos of their pieces on YouTube.16473338_1685085181505356_4529603169156126618_n16426090_1685085128172028_3258704406706486638_n16406601_1685085121505362_2619692717923916412_n16298753_1685085424838665_8230824642066952425_n

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Residency at Central Connecticut State University, 2016-2017

This week, we begin the first of a four-week series of workshops and performances as the chamber group in residence at Central Connecticut State University for the 2016-2017 academic year. After presenting workshops on writing for the harp and the horn this month, in addition to leading a panel on entrepreneurial chamber music, we will be workshopping and performing works by student composers at CCSU in January, and workshopping and performing CCSU faculty works in March. Here are some dates to put on your calendars if you live near New Britain, CT, and want to catch us in action:

  • Thursday, Sept 22. Entrepreneurial Chamber Music in the 21st Century. 3:05pm in Welte Hall, Room 019.
  • Thursday, Sept 23. Contemporary Writing for the Harp. 3:05pm in Founder’s Hall in Davidson.
  • Thursday, Sept 29. Contemporary Writing for the Horn. 3:05pm in Founder’s Hall in Davidson.
  • January 26-27. Workshop and performance of CCSU student pieces for horn and harp. 3:05pm.
  • March 7 and 9. Workshop and performance of CCSU faculty pieces for horn and harp. 3:05pm.

We are excited to meet more talented young composers this week, and can’t wait to introduce them to the creative potential of the harp and the horn!

Concert at Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church in Florida in February 2017

In a departure from our now-yearly tour of the mid-Atlantic in the middle of snowy wintertime, we are instead thrilled to partake of the balmy beach breezes of Fort Lauderdale in February. We will be presenting a concert of original works for horn and harp–most of them commissions–on Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church‘s concert series on Sunday, February 26 at 4pm. We can’t wait to bring our music to a new state and are grateful to concert series organizer and organist Chelsea Chen for the invitation to perform at Coral Ridge.

A Summer 2016 retrospective

We were honored to be awarded a residency at Avaloch Farm in New Hampshire for a second year in a row. From June 1-6, we enjoyed unlimited free time to rehearse, plan, test-run pieces for other residents, and grow immeasurably as a duo in a compact amount of time. We returned to the Friendly Soup Kitchen in Concord NH for another fun concert, and made inspiring new musician friends too.

From June 9-15, we served as one of three chamber groups in residence for the inaugural season of Connecticut Summerfest at the Hartt School. Run by composers Aaron Price and Gala Flagello, the festival was the perfect blend of highly-crafted concerts of pre-existing works (we even got to play solos by Messiaen and Berio on our showcase concert!) and workshops, recording sessions, and a final performance of student composer pieces. We had a great time working with composers Sean Rodan, Dan Isgar, and Colin Minigan on three new pieces for horn and harp, and are excited to showcase them on some of our upcoming programs this season!

On June 17, we performed a recital at the International Horn Symposium at Ithaca College. It was a pleasure to share some of our favorite commissions with horn players from around the world. We shared our program with another horn player, Jennifer Brummett, who played with us for Nate Pawelek’s piece Under the Moon (and Colleen played with her for another new piece, William Berry’s Moonlight in a Chamber.)