Australian Saxophone Duo Performance
Australian saxophone duo from Melbourne consisting of Justin Kenealy and Anthony Vouliotis proposes a various repertoire.
Biography
Justin Kenealy is a masters student at the University of Melbourne. In 2014, he won Melbourne University’s concerto competition, where he will perform with the University orchestra in 2015. He has won numerous performance awards including Fellowships from both Trinity College, London, and the Royal Schools of Music. Anthony Vouliotis is currently in the Bachelor of Music course at the University of Melbourne. In late 2014, with his saxophone quartet he won the University’s Chamber Music competition and in 2013 he obtaining an Associate Diploma of Music from AMEB. Together, Justin and Anthony formed the Hysteria Duo in 2014. The duo has worked with acclaimed international artists such as Niels Bijl, Andre Arends, Barry Cockcroft, Joshua Hyde, Joseph Lallo and Stephen Page.
More information
The Hysteria Duo was formed in 2014 by two enthusiastic Melbourne University saxophone students; Justin Kenealy and Anthony Vouliotis, who both wanted to explore the world of saxophone duets. We are interested in gaining exposure in performing on a global stage in front of many prominent concert saxophonists. Attending the World Saxophone Congress has been a dream and goal for the both of us for many years now and to be given the potential opportunity to perform is quite thrilling as we wish to present a program full of the music that we love.
Our program aims to showcase the versatility of the saxophone in a very short space of time with three contrasting pieces. Starting with Pierre-Max Dubois’ Six Caprices for Two Saxophones, we wish to present a piece that is a standard amongst saxophone literature, and being in France we feel that it is only right to present a French piece. The piece is light-hearted and possesses playful melodies, reminiscent of many other works written by Dubois. Stylistically, we feel that the six movements of the piece capture contrasting characters which we interpret very well.
Both of us learn off internationally acclaimed saxophonist Barry Cockcroft and it truly is a great privilege to learn from a musician of his calibre. Barry has an immense amount of experience in not only performing, but also composing, and we both believe that we should perform one of his pieces in our program. His works have seen successful adoption into modern saxophone literature and are performed all over the world. This adoption has lead to the sound of the Australian saxophone being developed, where Barry was recently invited to the Paris Conservatoire to speak about Australian music, which is captured in his works. As a result of this, we have chosen to perform Slap Me, a duet that makes great use of slap tonguing, as well as complicated cross-rhythms to form a piece that is highly energetic and enjoyable to the listener.
One thing we are both interested in is the transcription of great works by other instruments onto the saxophone, to see how successful the saxophone can be in pulling off masterpieces by the greats of the saxophone world. The last movement of George Frideric Handel’s Harpsichord Suite in G minor (HWV 432) is a Passacaglia which has become well known as a duo for violin and viola, arranged by the Norwegian violinist Johan Halvorsen. We have chosen to use this transcription to then create our own transcription for two alto saxophones.