About

Cellist Nicholas Canellakis and pianist-composer Michael Brown have been hailed as “a pair of adventurous young talents” (Time Out New York) who “play with their antennae tuned to each other” (The Washington Post). Performing together throughout the world for more than a decade, they combine their unique talents to create a duo that combines masterpieces from the standard literature with original compositions and arrangements.

Canellakis and Brown are both artists with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. They are guest curators for series around the country including the 2021 Music@Menlo Winter Focus Residency, and at Chamber Music Sedona, where Canellakis is the Artistic Director. Both maintain active solo careers, performing recitals and concertos each season. Canellakis, hailed as a “superb young soloist” (The New Yorker), made his Carnegie Hall Stern Auditorium debut as soloist with the American Symphony Orchestra. Brown, called a “young piano visionary,” is the recipient of an Avery Fisher Career Grant and was a 2018 Emerging Artist of Lincoln Center. Brown is also a critically acclaimed composer who has written many works for Canellakis, and for such organizations as the Maryland and New Haven symphonies, the Gilmore International Keyboard Festival, and Poland’s NFM Leopoldinum Orchestra. Canellakis is also a filmmaker and actor. He and Brown produce and star in a comedy web series called “Conversations with Nick Canellakis,” in which they conduct satirical interviews with stars of the classical music world.

Program

Claude Debussy: Sonata for Cello and Piano in D Minor
Sergei Rachmaninoff: Sonata in G minor for Cello and Piano, Op. 19
Alberto Ginastera: Pampeana No. 2, Op. 21 (Rhapsody for Cello and Piano)
Gabriel Fauré: Nocturne No. 3 in A-flat Major, arr. Canellakis for Cello and Piano
Michael Brown: Prelude and Dance (2017)
Maurice Ravel: Alborada del gracioso, for solo piano
Paganini: Variations on a theme by Rossini (Moses in Egypt)
Don Ellis arr. Canellakis: Bulgarian Bulge