The North Creek News Enterprise writes of the Elegua Duo’s recent Adirondack tour: “Two talented young women have emerged as one of this year’s most popular classical music performances … the Elegua Duo, named after the African mythological deity of opportunity, has inspired audiences across the region.” Cellist Ginevra Ventre and pianist Claire Black specialize in the cello-piano duo repertoire, and from concert halls to neighborhood cafés to your living room, the duo strives to promote music education and community involvement in the arts through vibrant and engaging performances. Miriam Kashiwa, founder of A Cabin in the Woods Concert Series in Thendara, NY and Director Emeritus of the Old Forge Arts Center, says of her experience hosting the duo in July, 2010: "The youthful cello-piano pair is conjoined musically; their performance transcribes as one instrument, their treatment of the score both accurate yet lissome with refined nuance and heart.”
Recently, the duo has given recitals on the Essex Concert Series in Essex, New York, at the Hyde Collection in Glens Falls, New York, on the Cabin in the Woods Concert Series in Thendara, New York, for the Fulbright Association in Cleveland, Ohio, and at the Adirondack Lakes Center for the Arts in Blue Mountain Lake, New York, in addition to house concerts throughout the Adirondack region of New York State. Their performances have featured sonatas for cello and piano from Beethoven to Britten; character pieces by the composers Stravinsky, Martinu, and Vaughan Williams; and world premieres, promoting the works of emerging composers such as Chris Porter of Los Angeles and John Coolen of Glens Falls, New York. The Elegua Duo is privileged to have been recorded live in concert by North Country Public Radio (NCPR). NCPR Production Manager Joel Hurd says of the duo, “With their warm personalities and passion for the music, I admired Claire and Ginevra before I heard a single note. After hearing them play I was an instant and enthusiastic fan. I can't wait to work with them again."
Individually, Claire and Ginevra’s chamber music engagements have taken them across North America and to Europe, to such locations as Memorial University of Newfoundland, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, Mixon Hall at the Cleveland Institute of Music (CIM), Hosmer Hall at the Crane School of Music in New York, the Frederick Loewe Theatre at New York University, and the Sala Medaglioni at the Conservatorio Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome, Italy. Frequently engaged as chamber musicians on the American music scene, they have also participated in music festivals such as the Tanglewood Institute in Lenox, MA, Brevard Music Center in Greensboro, NC, and the NYU Intensive String Quartet Workshop in New York City.
The Elegua Duo’s members are devoted to reaching out to communities through music. In the fall of 2009, the duo returned to Boston as guest lecturers on music entrepreneurship for the New England Conservatory’s Professional Artist Seminar. Claire maintains a private teaching studio, has given interactive chamber music workshops with the Cialde Piano Quintet in Cleveland’s inner city schools, has taught young pianists at the CIM’s Summer Sonata program, and works with a wide variety of soloists, choirs, and music theatre productions. Ginevra has toured the Washington, DC area as a teaching artist of the Prana Quartet, has coached cellists and string quartets at the Baldwin-Wallace College (B-W) Summer Music Institute, and has taught cello for the B-W Conservatory Preparatory Department.
Claire and Ginevra first collaborated as classmates at B-W and have studied the cello-piano duo repertoire with cellists Regina Mushabac and Yeesun Kim, and collaborative pianist Anne Epperson. In 2009 Ms. Ventre received her master’s degree in cello performance from the New England Conservatory, where she was a Community Performances and Partnerships Fellow. Ms. Black, staff accompanist at Baldwin-Wallace College, received her master’s degree in piano performance in 2010 from the Cleveland Institute of Music, under the tutelage of Margarita Shevchenko. Ginevra and Claire’s extra-musical interests include law and literature. Ms. Ventre is currently studying law at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, and recently interned with the Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts of Massachusetts. Claire has shared her writing at the St. Lawrence Young Writer’s Conference and at the New England Young Writer’s Conference in Middlebury, Vermont.
