Duo Pianists to Present Concert Sept. 8

The Janus Duo-pianists Barbara Rowan and Francis Whang-will perform at 8 p.m. Monday, Sept. 8, in Brendle Recital Hall on the Wake Forest campus.

The program, opening with Gershwin’s “Cuban Overture,” also will include two pieces for two pianos.

Rowan and Whang formed the Janus Duo, named for the Roman god with two faces, to offer innovative combinations of music written for one or two pianos. For their repertoire, the duo looks back to the 19th and early 20th centuries in their repertoire while looking forward to include newer music.

Rowan and Whang began their collaboration with a 1992 performance of Darius Milhaud’s “Concerto for Two Pianos and Orchestra” with the University of North Carolina Symphony. Both are longtime members of the music faculty at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Rowan’s specialties in 19th and 20th century music have taken her as a recitalist, orchestral soloist and chamber musician across the United States and to Austria, France, Sweden and Germany. She has been described in The New York Times as a pianist of “exceptional skill and vitality.”

Whang, who has performed as a soloist and chamber player in the United States, Europe and Asia, earned accolades in the Washington Post as “imaginative, sensitive, and a titan at the keyboard.”

Admission is free. For information, call 759-5026.

Categories: Arts & Culture, Events