DUO, Piano

Biography

In just three short years, DUO—the collaboration of Stephanie Ho and Saar Ahuvia in both piano four-hand and two-piano repertoire—finds itself on the verge of major recognition. Since their first rehearsal in 2002, DUO has already presented a complete two-piano recital on Baltimore's Concerts at Second Presbyterian music series and made their orchestral debut with the Czech Republic's Pilsen Radio Symphony Orchestra in Winterthur, Switzerland in November of 2005, performing Bohuslav Martinu's Concerto for Two Pianos and Orchestra.

While pursuing Graduate Performance Diplomas at the Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University, the young couple was inspired by Leon Fleisher to explore the string quartets of Beethoven in a duo piano setting. From that motivation came several small concert appearances of Beethoven's String Quartet Op. 18 No.6 and a mentorship by Mr. Fleisher who was joined in his efforts by both Julian Martin and Boris Slutsky, faculty members at the Juilliard School and Peabody Institute respectively

The artistic development of these fine young musicians as a piano duo was augmented by performances in such cities as Washington, New York, Zürich, Honolulu, Portland and Baltimore as well as other venues in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. In order to focus on developing a duo repertoire, they completed a Performing Artist Residency at the Banff Centre in Canada where they performed as well as recorded a four-hands CD that includes Debussy's Petite Suite, Mozart's Sonata in C Major, K. 521, and three Hungarian Dances by Brahms. Selections from this CD were heard on the Young Artist Showcase on WQXR FM in New York.

Interested in programming a wide variety of music, DUO has been exploring Bach Chorale Preludes for two-pianos, four-hand transcriptions of late Beethoven String Quartets, Messiaen's monumental Visions de I'Amen, as well as two-piano transcriptions of solo recordings of the jazz pianist Bill Evans. Deeply committed to playing new music, DUO has already inspired an original work written for them, Prelude and Variation, by the British composer Hywel Davies. Prelude and Variation received its world premiere by DUO in September of 2005.

In conjunction with their performance careers, both Stephanie and Saar are currently faculty members at Concordia College's Conservatory of Music in Bronxville, New York. They reside in New York City.