Be our Valentine – Sunday, February 19th at 2pm
Married Vancouver-based pianists Scott Meek and Clare Yuan are The Meeks Duo, an acclaimed four-hands piano duo whose aim is to make every performance a uniquely enjoyable experience. Already well-established performers in Canada, Scott and Clare recently made their Asian debut with concerts in Japan and Taiwan, including at the prestigious Taiwan National Concert Hall. During the first phase of the Covid-19 pandemic, they performed 22 weekly online concerts from their home from March to August 2020. Currently, they are very active as YouTubers, uploading new recordings every week since April 2021.
Programme
Variations On Autumn Leaves (2020) — Joseph Kosma
As Time Goes By — Herman Hupfeld/Ray Conniff
The Way You Look Tonight — Jerome Kern/Ray Conniff
Smoke Gets in Your Eyes — Jerome Kern/Igor Frolov
Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Ole Oak Tree — L. R Brown/I. Levine
Love Theme from Cinema Paradiso — Ennio Morricone
The Man I Love — George Gershwin
Fly Me To The Moon-light Sonata — Bart Howard/ Ludwig van Beethoven/Scott Meek
Piano Concerto no. 1, 2nd mvt (Romance) — Frédéric Chopin
Drinking Song from La Traviata — Giuseppe Verdi
Romance from 2-piano Suite no. 2, op. 17 — Sergei Rachmaninov
Coda from The Fairy’s Kiss — Igor Stravinsky
The Lark — M. Glinka /M. Balakirev
Waltz of the Flowers from The Nutcracker — Pyotr Tchaikovsky
Biographies
The Meeks Duo
Scott Meek maintains a busy schedule as an in-demand collaborative pianist and chamber musician. As a soloist, he has performed concertos with major orchestras in Canada, and is a top prizewinner in several national and international competitions in North America. Scott received a Doctor of Music degree from Indiana University and also studied at the Oberlin Conservatory. His principal teachers were Menahem Pressler, Alvin Chow, and Carole Pollard.
Clare Yuan runs a full studio of eager and talented students, who are inspired by her innovative teaching style and frequent performing opportunities. She has won scholarships and made her debut as a soloist in New York City, and as a conductor in Vancouver in 2013. Clare received a Master of Music degree from the Manhattan School of Music. She also studied at UBC and University of Victoria. Her principal teachers were Jane Coop, Arkady Aronov, Eva Solar-Kinderman, and Christine Eschman.
Scott and Clare combined musical forces shortly after they got married in 2013. They love the unique closeness of two musicians sharing a single instrument, and are happy to share this love with you!
The Meeks Duo is recognized for their groundbreaking inventiveness and uniquely diverse repertoire for piano duet. Their concert programs feature their own creative transformations of classical pieces into anything from Happy Birthday to Japanese pop, as well as standard duet repertoire and works by living composers. Scott and Clare entertain and inform with stories and anecdotes, and surprise with mid-performance antics, making each concert a memorable and unique experience for their audiences.
The Meeks Duo has been publishing new videos every week on YouTube since March 2021. Using their home as a recording studio, Scott’s original new arrangements combined with Clare’s distinctive video editing make each video visually and aurally engaging. Their interview series The Meeks Talk features engaging conversations with musicians from across the world, and they have been featured as guests on several other YouTube channels. Their music has been played on CBC and Fairchild Radio, and their albums are available worldwide all streaming platforms. Keen on promoting living composers and arrangers, Clare and Scott have had several new works and arrangements written for them, and they often perform works by lesser-known and female composers.
“A delightful, modest young couple with extraordinary talent!”
— Frances Herzer, member of Halpern Committee for the Performing Arts at Brock House
Chemainus Classical Concerts 