The Accompanists’ Guild of South Australia is proud to support two of the recent Geoffrey Parsons Award winners in their second program of works from the duo piano repertoire.
Michael Ierace (2004 Award winner) and Amir Farid (2007 Award winner) first met in Adelaide in 2005 as state representatives and competitors in the MBS National Final of the Young Performer of the Year Award. South Australian, Michael, took out the prize on that occasion and soon after won the premier awards from the Elder Conservatorium — the Elder Overseas Scholarship and the David Galliver Award.
Victorian, Amir won significant awards including the Piano Trio prize at the 2005 Australian Chamber Music Competition with the Benaud Trio ( now a successful chamber ensemble with its own national subscription series) , as an accompanist, for best pianist at the 2006 Mietta Song Recital and, as a soloist, winning the 2006 Australian National Piano Award.
Michael and Amir took up post graduate positions at the Royal College of Music in London. By coincidence they both studied with the same teacher, Professor Andrew Ball. Their musical partnership arose as a result of their RCM studies – as Amir said…
I guess it was an ideal situation to be in to form a duo —two Aussie pianist friends studying at the same institution with the same teacher with a duo piano subject on offer for credit towards our postgraduate course. Why not? Michael agreed – being an avid chamber musician he commented that he hadn’t ……. done much duo work and most of the rep is great stuff!
Australia’s newest virtuoso piano duo performed their first recital in July 2009 in Adelaide. The second recital was prepared for 2010 in Melbourne (July 25) and Adelaide (August 24). The program includes Mozart’s Two Piano Sonata, the Brahms Haydn Variations and Rachmaninoff’s Second Suite.
The Full Media Kit can be downloaded here