Anderson & Roe – Biography

Season Listing | Biography | Program | Program Notes

Described as “the most dynamic duo of this generation” (San Francisco Classical Voice), “rock stars of the classical music world” (Miami Herald), and “the very model of complete 21st-century musicians” (The Washington Post), the Anderson & Roe Piano Duo has won fans worldwide.

Their albums on the Steinway Label (When Words Fade, An Amadeus Affair, and The Art of Bach) were released to critical acclaim and have spent dozens of weeks at the top of the Billboard Classical Charts. Their Emmy-nominated, self-produced music videos have been viewed by millions on YouTube and at international film festivals.

Since forming their dynamic musical partnership in 2002 as students at The Juilliard School, Anderson & Roe have toured extensively as recitalists and orchestral soloists, presented at numerous international leader symposiums, and appeared on MTV, PBS, NPR, and the BBC. A live performance by Anderson & Roe was handpicked to appear on the Sounds of Juilliard CD celebrating the school’s centenary.

Highlights of the 2017/18 season include concerts throughout North America (including their Kennedy Center debut), Europe, Asia, and New Zealand; concerto appearances with the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, and Rochester Philharmonic; the release of their latest album, Mother Muse; and webcast hosting for the 15th Van Cliburn International Piano Competition.

A recent concert review in the Washington Post observed that the duo has “elevated four-hand keyboard music into an art form.”

“While each is a virtuosic powerhouse pianist in his and her own right,” the review continued, “what sets the pair apart is an ability to make emotional and spiritual connections with their audiences, not only through their merry music-making but also their intelligent and witty commentary in between playing.”

Anderson & Roe – Program

Season Listing | Biography | Program | Program Notes

Saturday, April 7, 2018
Anderson & Roe piano duo

Leonard Bernstein / Anderson & Roe
Prelude, Fugue, and Riffs

John Adams
Hallelujah Junction

  • 1st Movement
  • 2nd Movement
  • 3rd Movement

Anderson & Roe
Hallelujah Variations
(Variations on a Theme by Leonard Cohen)

John Lennon & Paul McCartney / Anderson & Roe
‘Let it Be’ from Let it Be

***  INTERMISSION ***

Leonard Bernstein / Anderson & Roe
West Side Story Suite

  • Mambo
  • Tonight
  • Somewhere
  • America

Christoph Willibald Gluck / Anderson & Roe
Ballet from Orphée et Eurydice

Georges Bizet / Anderson & Roe
Carmen Fantasy for Two Pianos

Anderson & Roe – Program Notes

Season Listing | Biography | Program | Program Notes

Pianists Greg Anderson and Elizabeth Joy Roe have chosen a program for Saturday, April 7, 2018’s Brown County Civic Music concert that includes many of the pieces they performed at their Kennedy Center debut in February.

Highlights of that critically acclaimed performance included the duo’s self-penned “Hallalujah Variations,” which will be the third selection of the program. Based on the famous theme by the late Leonard Cohen, the Anderson and Roe variation sets the tender melody against an intricate backdrop of harmonics and countermelodies.

In “Hallelujah Junction,” a 1996 composition for two pianos by American composer John Adams (a composition unrelated to the more famous Cohen music), the artists combine for a rhythmic soundscape, creating an effect of echoing sonorities.

Concluding the first half of the concert will be an Anderson and Roe interpretation of the Beatles’ classic “Let it Be,” with a take that has been described as bringing out jazz or gospel undertones of the melody.

The duo resumes after intermission with the moving, spirited and crowd-pleasing music of Leonard Bernstein’s “America.”

One of opera’s most beloved masterpieces, the elegant and emotional Ballet from Orphée et Eurydice, by the 18th century composer Christoph Willibald Gluck, will follow.  Closing the program is more opera-inspired music, this time with Anderson & Roe’s treatment of Georges Bizet’s masterwork, with “Carmen Fantasy for Two Pianos.”