$10 student and $35 senior tickets are available. Call the box office at 212 501 3330.

Pianists Anthony de Mare and Adam Sherkin join forces for this all-Canadian program. In sets from both one and two keyboards, music from the north is highlighted in fresh relief, featuring works by Jocelyn Morlock, Ann Southam, Heather Schmidt, Linda Catlin Smith and Rodney Sharman. With every selection written within the last twenty-five years, de Mare and Sherkin take on solo sets, then team up for special commissions on two pianos: a novel version of Jared Miller’s The Bright Exuberant Silence, and Adam Sherkin’s Ink from the Shield, five musical postcards taking inspiration from the time Benjamin Britten and Peters Pears spent in Canada – as pacifists – during the Second World War.

Piano Lunaire’s main stage series, “Composers in Play” presents new music by living composers, ever pursuing their best works from the keyboard. Join on March 15th for this marquee event!

Sherkin’s thoughts on Ink from the Shield: this work takes inspiration from the places in Canada where Benjamin Britten and Peters Pears stayed: Montreal and St. Jovite, Quebec; Bala (in Muskoka), and Toronto, Ontario and finally, Halifax, Nova Scotia. I have evolved these materials into a two-piano structure and recreated musical forms from my own improvisations (dating back to 2013). The “shield” in question here is the Canadian Shield: a broad northern region of Precambrian rock, much enhanced with a nod to the music Britten penned on his North American journey. ~A.S.

Anthony de Mare, piano
Adam Sherkin, piano

JARED MILLER – The Bright Exuberant Silence, version for 2 pianos*
JOCELYN MORLOCK – Prelude for GG, The Jack Pine and Phoebes and Deimos, Circling
HEATHER SCHMIDT – Twelve for Ten: Prelude and Fugue for GG
RODNEY SHARMAN – Selected Opera Transcriptions
ADAM SHERKIN – Ink from the Shield for 2 pianos*
LINDA CATLIN SMITH – The View from Here and Zart
ANN SOUTHAM – Rivers: Set 3 No. 4; Set 3 No. 3; Set 7 No. 7; Pond Life: Fiddle and Fidget “Creeks”
ANDREW STANILAND – Etudes: Symmetry, Of the Sea and Flower in Daytime **

** WORLD PREMIERE
* US PREMIERE