The Carr-Petrova Duo in their Carnegie Hall debut

The Carr-Petrova Duo in their Carnegie Hall debut, in celebration of the culmination of the duo's Novel Voices Refugee Aid Project. 

The Carr-Petrova Duo

Monday, October 28, 2019 8 PM  Weill Recital Hall 

Debut Album “Novel Voices” release on Melos Label

October 4, 2019

“The Carr-Petrova Duo is one of the most exciting ensembles I have encountered in years. They play with intelligence, passion and precision, communicating the music with an immediacy and virtuosity that is irresistible.” – Lowell Liebermann

New York, NY- When the Carr-Petrova Duo make their Carnegie Debut in October they will be doing so in dresses handmade, designed and dyed by the women of RefuSHE, an organization that serves East Africa’s most vulnerable refugees. It is a key part of a themed performance comprising a program of works by Weinberg, Khachaturian and Lowell Liebermann, as well as the world premiere of Fernando Arroyo Lascurain's Novel Voices—a work inspired by the people, stories, cultures, and music the duo encountered during their travels into refugee camps.

The Carr-Petrova Duo concludes a milestone year with their Novel Voices Refugee Aid Project, a project designed to give voice and visibility, through music and film, to the lives and struggles of refugees around the world. Since August 2018, they have brought free, interactive classical music concerts and workshops to displaced populations while increasing awareness of and raising support for both U.S.-based and international refugee-aid programs. The Project began with a concert at the United Nations in honor of the 70th Anniversary of the Declaration of Human Rights and concludes in the coming weeks with the release of the Carr-Petrova Duo’s Debut Album “Novel Voices” on October 4, 2019, and a final “Refugee Awareness” Concert – the Duo’s Carnegie Debut in Weill Recital Hall on October 28, 2019.

The concert program will include works recorded on the Duo’s debut album “Novel Voices,” alongside Lowell Liebermann’s Sonata for Viola and Piano, Op. 13 – all pieces which the Duo performed in their refugee-camp programming. The evening will also feature a preview of the documentary filmed throughout the Project. 

Liebermann’s Sonata for Viola and Piano received its premiere at New York City’s Town Hall in 1985 and was written for violist Neal Gripp, winner of the 1984 Juilliard Viola Competition. In a review of violist Cathy Basrak’s recording of the Sonata for Cedille Records in 2002, Slate described it as “a three-movement work graced with the prized New Yorker’s distinct talent for finding in the language of the Romantics a new, more urgent musical way to express obsession.” The Duo also comments on the piece, “We were immediately and are still continually drawn to this Sonata as it has always evoked strong, visceral responses due to its macabre, fantastical nature. As a Duo, we also enjoy that Liebermann presents the viola and piano here as equal voices, pushing us both to the limits of our instruments’ technical and expressive capabilities.”

On the Project, the Duo remarks: “Our mission with this Project was not to make any political statements, or align ourselves with any political parties, policies, or government practices. We merely saw two things - people in need and a way we might in our very small way be able to help. Thus, the Novel Voices Refugee Aid Project has always been a project of the heart, not politics.” 

On their debut album, the Duo comments: “The concept of this album is one of hope through adversity. We chose works written by composers who faced tremendous struggle but who nevertheless used their art, through catharsis, to help find their place and voice in foreign lands. 

Within the album live several of these novel voices: Khachaturian, an Armenian working in Moscow, who emerged victorious from the shackles of official state censorship; Clarke, a British female composer working in the United States, who – whilst writing in a male-dominated world - gifted the planet with a sonata for viola and piano that has become one of the masterpieces of the century; Weinberg, a Polish Jew in Soviet Russia, doubly marginalized by virtue of both his Jewishness and his Polishness, forced to displace himself to another country because his own was occupied by the Nazis. And lastly, Fernando Arroyo Lascurain's piece, Novel Voices, a unique composition inspired by our travels through the Novel Voices Refugee Aid Project into refugee camps and support programs in the US, Europe, and the Middle East. Lascurain used our conversations and encounters as the basis for an original musical composition, giving the project’s refugee participants and their stories a novel musical voice.” 

About the Artists Described as “ravishing" (Strad), "enlightened" (BBC), "explosive” (Virginia Gazette), and "irresistibly elegant" (Diario de Leon), violist Molly Carr and pianist Anna Petrova are rapidly compiling a remarkable list of accolades in recognition of their fiery musical expression, refined artistry, and relentless entrepreneurial dedication to social initiatives. Both acclaimed international soloists, as individuals they have won top prizes in several international competitions, and have been featured in such world-renowned venues as the Concertgebouw, Lincoln Center, and the Jerusalem Music Center. 

Monday, October 28, 2019 at 8:00PM

Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall

Mieczyslaw Weinberg: Sonata for Clarinet and Piano, Op. 28 (arr. by Adler)

Fernando Arroyo Lascurain: Novel Voices (World Premiere)

Aram Khachaturian: “Lullaby” from Gayaneh (arr. by Carr-Petrova Duo)

Lowell Liebermann: Sonata for Viola and Piano, Op. 13

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Hi Res Photos

Video of the Carr-Petrova Duo performing Impetuoso from R. Clarke’s Sonata for Viola and Piano.   

The Duo is the recipient of the Music Academy of the West Alumni Enterprise Award and will be presented by Project: Music Heals Us and ProMusicis. The proceeds of the concert will be donated to the Refugee Assistance Partners and the Home for Refugees USA.