Award-winning international concert pianists Alessio Bax and Lucille Chung and Dallas Symphony percussionists Douglas Howard and Brian Jones, all of whom are SMU Meadows faculty members, will join forces for a dynamic concert, 2x2 Pianos and Percussion.

The concert is the second offering in this season’s Faculty Artist and Distinguished Alumni Recital Series at SMU Meadows, which features performances by outstanding faculty and/or alumni who maintain concert careers.

Bax and Chung, who are husband and wife, will perform masterpieces of the 20th century from the two-piano repertoire. The program opens with Lutoslawski’s Variations on a Theme by Paganini; its punchy rhythms and sharp edges take Paganini’s famous 24th Caprice to an exciting new level. It will be followed by Bartok’s epic Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion with Howard and Jones. One of Bartok’s most unusual and beloved works, it features two pianists and two percussionists playing seven different instruments.

The second half of the concert will showcase two early 20th-century French works. Debussy’s En blanc et noir was inspired by the sonorities of two pianos – its title translates to “In black and white,” a reference to the color of piano keys. Composed during World War I, it incorporates numerous references to war and recalls the gloomy and fantastic imagery of Velásquez and Goya. The concert concludes with Ravel’s La Valse, composed in 1919-20.