Seleljo Duo (saxophone & piano)

Website(s) : http://www.facebook.com/seleljoduo

Biography

Erzsébet and Irén Seleljo were born in a musical family, their parents were also first teachers. Besides her other commitments, Irén is currently the accompanist of the saxophone classes in Kunstuniversitat Graz and Konservatorium Wien. After finishing her saxophone studies in Royal College of Music in London and Konservatorium Wien, Erzsébet is working as a freelance saxophonist in Hungary and teaching at the Bartók Music High School. The sisters have been playing together for several years now. They have performed in London, Vienna, Rome, Uzhgorod, around Romania and all over Hungary. Their repertoire ranges from baroque transcriptions to contemporary premieres. They focus on original saxophone repertoire and they are keen on commisioning new works as well as promoting Hungarian music.

More information

The Seleljo Duo is committed to performing contemporary repertoire and commissioning new works. We have had pieces dedicated to us by several composers, such as András Gábor Virágh, Mihály Borbély and Vlad Maistorovici. In our performance we would like to present some of these works, which, we believe could become part of saxophone repertoire in the years to come. Tetra was composed by Virágh in 2010 and dedicated to us. We premierred the piece, played it all around Hungary and it has been on our repertoire ever since. Virágh’s complex harmonic and rhythmic language is combined with some extended techniques on the saxophone and virtuoso cadenza on piano and besides setting a high standard for the individual players is also a challenge to play together. Maistorovici composed his piece Memorial especially for us in order to be premierred during our Romanian tour in April 2014. The work opens with a saxophone cadenza, and when the pianist joins in, she has to play inside the piano almost all the way through. The saxophonist is required to play multiphonics, quartertones, use slap tongue and the high register. The composers note is: this piece is about the memory of all who are not with us any more.