Duo Concertante – Mar 20 2010
Duo Concertante (Nancy Dahn, violin and Timothy Steeves, piano), dubbed “the next generation of classical music stars” by BRAVO!TV, has just celebrated its 10th anniversary as “superb musicians” (WholeNote), who “work together with uncanny perfection” (Waterloo Gazette). Touring highlights of 08/09 feature China, England, Germany, Russia, North America’s west coast, Ontario, and New England.
Duo Concertante is heard frequently on national and regional radio programs, and the Duo’s ATMA Classique recordings- à deux, Of Heart and Homeland, and Wild Honey- were all nominated for Best Classical Recording at the East Coast Music Awards (2000, 2003, 2005). In April of 2009, the Duo will release its fourth disc, It Takes Two, on the Marquis Classics label, featuring light encore pieces (e.g., Tico Tico, A Night in Tunisia, Mozart’s Turkish March) arranged especially for them by Canadian composer Clifford Crawley.
Dedicated to introducing the best new music to the repertoire, Duo Concertante consistently champions Canadian composers whose music they love. Its commission of Duo for Violin and Piano by renowned composer R. Murray Schafer resulted in a wonderfully received world premiere at this summer’s Ottawa International Chamber Music Festival. Its third disc, Wild Honey (2005), is comprised entirely of works written especially for them, and the Duo will record a fifth CD of all-Canadian works by Schafer, Agócs, and Chan in June 2009 in collaboration with narrator Barbara Budd (from CBC’s As It Happens)
Numerous honours and awards include Best Touring Performers Award (Contact East) and Memorial University’s prestigious President’s Award for Outstanding Research, bestowed on the Duo in competition with all disciplines and all faculties.
As Artistic Directors of the Tuckamore Chamber Music Festival, Dahn & Steeves work and perform with such prestigious guests as the Shanghai Quartet, Mark Fewer, the Lafayette String Quartet, Suzie le Blanc, Robert Kortgaard and Stephanie Sant’Ambrogio. There, they are dedicated to developing and inspiring young talent from across North America each summer, and they also enjoy giving master classes at the Glenn Gould Professional School, UBC, University of Victoria, McMaster University, University of Western Ontario, Bishop’s University, the Huntsville Festival, the Colours of Music Festival and the Guelph Spring Festival.
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