Neo-Art Piano Duo

Harmony in Music and Friendship

By Regina Tanujaya (Alpha Kappa, Kansas City Alumni) and Matteo Generani (Alpha Kappa)

Our Story

Neo-Art Piano Duo members are Regina Tanujaya (Alpha Kappa, Kansas City Alumni) and Matteo Generani (Alpha Kappa). We chose the name Neo-Art because we always want to bring something new to our audiences, we want to try new ways to perform and we also want to create new music.

While Neo-Art Piano Duo is based in Kansas City, Missouri, Regina is from Indonesia, and Matteo is from Italy. We first met while pursuing our doctorate degrees at the University of Missouri – Kansas City. We studied with the same professor, Alon Goldstein, an incredible mentor and inspiration to both of us.

We started playing together in 2018 after we became good friends, mainly just for fun and occasionally to perform together as an addition to our solo performances. After realizing how well we worked together, we officially formed the Neo-Art Piano Duo in 2022 and performed professionally.

Since 2018, we have performed together on many occasions in Kansas City from outreach performances in retirement homes to bigger concerts at the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts in Kansas City. In February 2023, the Emerald Coast Music Alliance Foundation invited us as guest artists for a 10-day residency to perform concerts in Florida.

Neo-Art Piano-Duo also serves as co-artistic directors for the Classical Music Express concert series, a newly founded concert series that brings classical music performances outside the concert halls to create a stronger connection between performers and audience.

Choosing Repertoire

The Neo-Art Piano Duo is very flexible with our programming, and we play repertoires for four hands (on one piano) and two pianos. We want to be versatile and offer unique and interesting performances. We mainly perform classical music but can easily expand our genres depending on our interests.

When programming, we make sure to vary the different kinds of music we present to create a captivating program that aims to both educate the audience to different styles and periods and to entertain them. As a room with paintings and visual arts is a decoration of space, a concert is a decoration of time. Not every piece of visual art fits in the same room, or next to another piece. Similarly, not every piece of music works alongside any other.

A process of selection and planning is necessary to create a program that will intrigue and not bore the listeners. To start out our duo, we perform quite a lot of audience favorite repertoires, because we know that this would be more accessible to a larger audience and we want to reach as many people as we can to introduce Neo-Art Piano Duo.

As a duo, we also make our arrangements of pieces we love. We also experiment with putting some theatrics into our piano performances. Our interest has been to perform pieces, usually for larger ensembles or the orchestra, in more venues and to be more accessible to larger audiences.

As a piano duo, we can condense a large-scale work to be heard by performing on one piano. This has benefited smaller venues or facilities without a big budget, as bringing an entire orchestra to them is challenging. In the future, we want to collaborate with different artists and create multidisciplinary events. We are also always open to ideas and exploring other genres/types of performances.

Our Favorite Four-Hands Repertoire:

• Saint-Saëns — Carnival of the Animals (arr. Lucien Garban)

• Schumann — Bilder aus Osten, Op. 66

• Bernstein — Candide Overture (arr. Charlie Harmon)

• Gershwin — Rhapsody in Blue (arr. Henry Levine)

Our Favorite Two-Pianos Repertoire:

• Rachmaninov — Suite No. 2

• Mozart — Sonata in D major

• Poulenc — Concerto for Two Pianos and orchestra

• Saint-Saëns -— Carnival of the Animals (for two pianos and chamber ensemble)

Two-Hand Piano Formations

When performing in a two pianos formation, usually the two pianists face each other, with the two pianos laid out parallel to each other, in opposite directions, with the two bent sides next to each other. This makes the two pianists able to cue by nodding with the heads, and to look each other easily in the eyes. The downside of this layout is that it’s not possible to see each other’s hands.

A way to solve this issue is to position the two pianos in a way that the two pianists are almost side to side, with the pianos still parallel and in opposite directions, but not interlocking the bent sides. In this manner, the two pianists are still able to see each other, plus they can see at each other’s hands.

Rehearsal Process

After we choose our repertoire, we also immediately assign who will play which part. This selection is usually based on the order of a specific recital program, if any of us already studied a specific part before. So far, we have been able to divide the parts without any conflicts.

We do not meet to rehearse until we get a little closer to the performance date, because both of us have our own individual schedules. We are always having a hard time finding times that work for both of us that we usually end up rehearsing late at night, around 8:00 p.m. to midnight.

Each of us would practice our own parts but study the piece as a whole. That way, we already know how things interlock musically, we just need to rehearse how to execute them well. This process goes smoother and faster as we work together more. One thing that is a lot more time-consuming than anticipated is choreographing the page turns. We want to page-turn ourselves and incorporate that act into our performance.

Finding Our Dynamics

We have been performing more four-hands repertoire programs because it is easier to find venues with one piano than two pianos. When we do four-hands pieces, there are many challenges in figuring out the positioning of our bodies and hands. We are always quite “uncomfortable,” because we have to share our space and we have to sit in a position that is not ideal for some passages.

We found out quickly how little space we have when playing with another pianist next to us compared to when we practice alone. It’s crucial to remember who crosses under/above, and when to move out of the way fast. We would also have the other person’s elbow too close to the other’s face at times.

To play together, we have to pre-determine who leads the cues on every necessary spot. Mainly, we cue with breaths, like in most collaborative performances. However, since we sit so close, our arms touch and we sometimes use arm motion to execute the “push and pull” of the music together. We also use our wrists to conduct. We are still exploring more ways to communicate without words for the performance. There needs to be a lot of verbal communication in our rehearsals to achieve a great ensemble in the performance.

The most important thing is that both of us have a lot of fun practicing, rehearsing and solving all the puzzles together! We always appreciate our productive teamwork.

Ways to communicate in the performance:

• Breath cues (auditory cues)

• Conducting with wrist (visual cues)

• Arms touch and moving together (kinetic cues)

• Pre-concert agreements: For example, we might agree to give one full beat between movements, so we don’t need to cue for every single movements (attacca)

Arranging Shostakovich Project

One of our ongoing projects is arranging the complete Suite for Variety Stage Orchestra No. 1 by Dmitri Shostakovich for four hands. This piece was mistakenly identified as Suite for Jazz Orchestra No. 2 and sometimes this piece is still referred to as the Jazz Suite No. 2. We both love this eight-movement suite, because it is full of character. Our plan is to arrange all eight movements of the suite, publish the score, record us performing our arrangements, and present the project in concerts and conferences.

Clarification about Shostakovich Suites:

• 1934, Shostakovich composes The Suite for Jazz Orchestra No. 1 (Jazz Suite No. 1)

• 1938, Shostakovich composes The Suite for Jazz Orchestra No. 2

• The score was lost during World War II, but a piano score of the work was rediscovered in 1999 by Manashir Yakubov. Three movements of the suite were reconstructed and orchestrated by Gerard McBurney, and were premiered at a The Proms in London in 2000.

• Prior to its rediscovery, another eight-movement suite by Shostakovich had been misidentified and recorded as the second Jazz Suite. That work is now correctly known as the Suite for Variety Orchestra No. 1.

• Sometime after 1956, Shostakovich-Atovmyan Suite for Variety Orchestra No. 1

• An editorial error in the tenth volume of the Shostakovich collected works edition published by Muzyka in 1984 resulted in the Suite for Variety Orchestra No. 1 being misidentified as the Suite for Jazz Orchestra No. 2 or Jazz Suite No. 2.

• The score was first published with the correct name in 2001

• Levon Atovmyan, who arranged and assembled the suite, was a close friend of Shostakovich and was regularly tasked with arranging concert suites of his film music.

About Neo-Art Piano Duo

Neo-Art Piano Duo is an emerging duo from Kansas City, known for performing programs of audience favorites. Regina Tanujaya (Alpha Kappa, Kansas City Alumni) and Matteo Generani (Alpha Kappa) are performing together in various venues and occasions, from outreach performances in assisted living communities in the Kansas City areas to bigger venues such as the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts and the Steinway Piano Gallery Kansas City. They also work together as co-artistic directors of the Classical Music Express concert series. Neo-Art Piano Duo is excited to continue exploring different ways to perform, enriching their repertoire selections and reaching larger audiences.

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Learn more at www.neoartpianoduo.com