Duo Octavian: The Planets in Black and White

To kick off the new year, Duo Octavian (two pianos) returns to Concerts Enchanté, but performing for the first time in the Centre Wakefield La Pêche's Gwen Shea Hall.  This concert features a program that the duo will be recording as their first album shortly after this performance.  Suren Barry's arrangement of Rameau's joyful overture to the opera Pygmalion starts things off, followed by Kelly-Marie Murphy's Dr. Blue's Rapidly Deployable Escape Ladder, which  the duo commissioned in 2022.  The piece is inspired by Joan Miro's painting The Escape Ladder, and imagines the frantic escape and pursuit that the painting suggests.  The program is rounded off with Carson and Suren's arrangement of Gustav Holst's massive orchestral suite The Planets.  One of the most popular and enduring pieces of music of the last century, it was undoubtedly the inspiration for John Williams' Star Wars.  

Music:

Jean-Philippe Rameau, arr. Suren Barry: Overture to Pygmalion

Kelly-Marie Murphy: Dr. Blue's Rapidly Deployable Escape Ladder

Gustav Holst, arr. Duo Octavian: The Planets