Pianists Guy Livingston (Yale University, New England Conservatory)
and Maria Sperling (Stellenbosch University, Royal Conservatory
of the Netherlands) present an energetic and sometimes sober,
sometimes drunken look at the links between two of the highest
arts: music and wine.
This is a musically rambunctious duo, whose concerts
celebrate wine, with classical (and not so classical) music.
Broadway meets Jazz, Cabaret meets Opera, as these duo pianists
(also a duo in their private life) perform together. And it's
not just piano either...don't be surprised if you hear a wine-bottle-marimba, or see virtuoso performances on a one-stringed violin.
The duo has performed in wine cellars, supermarkets, tents, chateaux, 5-star hotels, bars, boats, churches, and concert halls; on horrible upright pianos and on the world's largest Fazioli grand piano.
German Tour - May 2005 "Shirazmataz" Veranstaltungen Musik
- Ein Flügel, zwei Pianisten, vier Hände … und die passende
Weinverkostung
Die ausgebildeten Konzert-Pianisten Guy Livingston und Maria
Sperling (Tochter der Weinbaufamilie Sperling aus Südafrika)
präsentieren einen energiegeladenen, mal nüchternen, mal angeheiterten
Ausblick auf die Verbindung der beiden höchsten Künste: Musik
& Wein. Das Why Not Duo steht für Spaß mit Musik und Wein.
Und so ist auch die Musik dieses lebhaften Duos, dessen Konzerte
den Wein hochleben lassen, abwechslungsreich und unterhaltsam.
Seien Sie nicht überrascht, wenn Sie nicht nur den Klängen
des Flügels lauschen, sondern auch eine Marimba auf Weinflaschen,
Pfeifen und Tambourin hören. Klassik, Jazz, Broadway & Cabaret
- jedes Musikstück passt zu einem bestimmten Delheim Wein.
Einige Stücke wurden speziell für diese Show geschrieben -
Inspirationen kommen aus dem Charakter der Traube, dem Weinstil,
seinem Geschmack und Aroma. Probieren Sie Delheim Weine -
das Familienweingut gilt als eines der renommiertesten in
Südafrika überhaupt. Die einzigartigen Bedingungen in Stellenbosch,
der wohl besten Anbauregion am Kap, helfen Delheim erstklassige
Weine zu erzeugen.
Bonn, Dresden, Berlin, and Luckenwalde
South
African Tour 2005 On
the 1st of March, 2005, Delheim wines inaugurated the new
roof on the Delheim production cellar by hosting the Why Not
Duo in a program featuring excerpts from Bizet's Carmen, George
Gershwin's Sweet and Low-Down, and three premieres
commissioned especially for Delheim Wines: Shirazmataz
by Christopher Culpo, Cést Tres Noir by Bongani
Ndodana, and Fantasia Botryticus by Marek Zebrowski.
The program closed with a theatrical arrangement of The
Nothing Doing Bar, a comic cabaret piece by Darius Milhaud.
Upcoming Performances And in October 2006,
expect to see them in Canada (Montreal, Toronto and
maybe Halifax, too).
Wine cruises and California tour in 2007...
The Performers
Maria Sperling was
awarded her Bachelor of Music cum laude and her Masters of Music
(Piano Performance & Musicology), also cum laude at the
University of Stellenbosch, South Africa, where her final thesis
was entitled: “Music without audience? Contemporary art
music in a postmodern society” In 1997, she also received
a Diploma Docerend Musicus Piano, (Piano Teaching Diploma)
from the Koninklijk Conservatorium, in The Hague, Netherlands.
Grants and study awards included the Hartman-, Franken-, and
Molteno bursaries, the Harry Crossley for study abroad in 1995
& 1996, and the Centre for Science & Development bursary
in 1998. Additionally she studied “Non-western music techniques
in contemporary music” at the Amsterdam Conservatory in
2002. In addition to her many performance activities,
she is an active researcher specializing in market research,
music education, and audience development. Recent projects have
focussed on South African contemporary music, and on researching
and making an inventory of the music education system in primary
schools in Amsterdam. Maria performs regularly as pianist and
accompanist; and is a freelance pianist with Het Gelders Orkest,
where she was recently soloist in Saint-Saëns’ Carnival
des Animaux.
Guy Livingston studied
architecture at Yale University, and received his Masters in
Piano from the New England Conservatory in Boston. Finalist
in the Gaudeamus, Sitges, and Orléans competitions, he
moved to Paris in 1992 to study with Claude Helffer, and then
to Holland where he obtained his graduate diploma (U.M.) in
1997. He has soloed with the Chicago Symphony, the Orchestre
Nationale de France, and the NCRV (Dutch Radio) Orchestras.
His highly successful first CD, “60 Seconds for Piano”
included sixty one-minute premieres by new composers. His new
disc, “The Lost Sonatas of George Antheil,” was
described by Le Monde as ‘dazzling.’ He has directed
festivals of new music in Paris and Trenton and organized events in Boston and Philadephia. As a concert pianist he has performed recitals all over the world, including Italy, France, Germany, the Georgian Republic, Tunisia, India, South Africa, England, Russia, Poland, and in the US from Los Angeles to New York.
The Why Not Duo
has performed in South Africa, France, the United States, and
Holland, in programs of contemporary and classical music. "Shirazmataz"
is the title of their new theatrical show.
Repertoire
Mozart
Sonatas Beethoven Egmont Overture, arr. Schubert Fantasie en fa mineur Brahms Hungarian Dances Bizet Carmen Overture Poulenc Sonata en la Satie Trois Morceaux en Forme de Poire Milhaud
Boeuf sur le Toit/The Nothing Doing Bar Gershwin Songs Antheil Trentoniana Suite Ives Quarter-Tone Pieces Cage Winter Music Stravinsky Petrouchka Piazzola Tangos
Commissioned Composers Three composers have been invited to write
for the Why Not Duo. In keeping with the international flavor
of the duo, each has fascinating multiple lives...
Christopher Culpo (France/US)
Christopher Culpo has earned degrees in composition from Boston
University and The Juilliard School where he studied amongst
others with Milton Babbitt and David del Tredici. Following
his studies at Juilliard Mr. Culpo was personal assistant to
Aaron Copland and an active Teaching Artist for the Lincoln
Center Institute. Mr. Culpo has composed for the dance, theatre,
music-theatre, and concert stages and is an active jazz composer
and performer. Since receiving a Fulbright scholarship to work
with Tristan Murail in Paris in 1991, Mr. Culpo has lived and
worked in Europe. Always active as a performer, Mr Culpo recently
released the album "Portrait in Black and White" with saxophonist
Jean Charles Richard. He also composes for the CULPO/RICHARD/HERBERT
TRIO which features Mr. Richard and bassist Peter Herbert, and
their first cd LOVE & BANANAS ARE HERE will be released on Cristal
Records in March 2005.
A wine tasting featured Shiraz wine, along with
Shirazmataz, a new composition by Chris Culpo.
Bongani Ndondana (South Africa/Canada) Bongani Ndodana has written music which has
been performed by the Belgian National Orchestra led by Dirk
Brossé, Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra, Symphony Nova Scotia,
Natal Philharmonic, New York City's Vox Vocal Ensemble, Cape
Town City Ballet and Ensemble Noir. He currently directs the
Toronto-based new music group Ensemble Noir -which was the first
Canadian classical music ensemble to do an extensive tour of
Africa to Ghana, Nigeria and South Africa in 2003. Ndodana was
awarded the Standard Bank Young Artist Award for Music, in 1998,
one of South Africa's most prestigious arts prizes. This award
led to a commission for his opera-oratorio Uhambo that he conducted
at the National Arts Festival in Grahamstown. Following the
premiere of his African Kaddish for large orchestra, led by
German conductor Bernhard Gueller, Ndodana was described as
"a wonder boy composer with a natural gift second to none" by
the Mail and Guardian. His own music is influenced by the lyricism
and rhythms of Africa, blended with an eclectic, post-modern
approach to contemporary music.
Bongani Ndodana's piece Cést Tres
Noir
was paired with Delheim Brut.
Marek Zebrowski
(Poland/US)
Marek Zebrowski was born in Poznan, Poland, and began studying
piano at the age of five. After graduating with highest honours
from the Poznan Music Lyceum, he went to France, where he was
a pupil of Robert Casadesus and Nadia Boulanger. Mr. Zebrowski
came to the United States in 1973 and continued his studies
of piano with Russell Sherman at the New England Conservatory
of Music, where he received his Bachelor's and Master's Degrees.
He has received commissions from Meet The Composer, The New
England String Quartet, and Premiere Productions and Central
Europe Trust in the United Kingdom, among others. World premieres
of his latest compositions took place in The Netherlands and
Italy in 1998 and in Los Angeles in 2001 and 2002. His performances
and compositions are also featured on the Titanic Records and
Harmonia Mundi labels.
Marek Zebrowksi's composition
"Fantasia botrytica"
celebrates the late-harvest Edelspatz
wine from Delheim.
Contact
Guy Livingston 89 rue St. Fargeau
75020 Paris France
tel: +33.6.03.80.49.65
Maria Sperling
Zoutkeetsgracht 33 1013LC Amsterdam
Netherlands
tel: +31.20.623.8015
Booking
guylive@lycos.com
page design by James Baiye, copyright 2005
Photos
The Why Not Duo presents "Shirazmataz"
Programme également disponible en français
Programm ist verfügbar auf Deutsch
Possiamo farlo anche in italiano
Guy Livingston studied
architecture at Yale University, and received his Masters in
Piano from the New England Conservatory in Boston. Finalist
in the Gaudeamus, Sitges, and Orléans competitions, he
moved to Paris in 1992 to study with Claude Helffer, and then
to Holland where he obtained his graduate diploma (U.M.) in
1997. He has soloed with the Chicago Symphony, the Orchestre
Nationale de France, and the NCRV (Dutch Radio) Orchestras.
His highly successful first CD, “60 Seconds for Piano”
included sixty one-minute premieres by new composers. His new
disc, “The Lost Sonatas of George Antheil,” was
described by Le Monde as ‘dazzling.’ He has directed
festivals of new music in Paris and Trenton and organized events in Boston and Philadephia. As a concert pianist he has performed recitals all over the world, including Italy, France, Germany, the Georgian Republic, Tunisia, India, South Africa, England, Russia, Poland, and in the US from Los Angeles to New York. 
