Ananda Duet

Ananda Duet

for Violin and Cello

June 3--July 7, 2009
Duration: about 11 minutes Photo above: first performance

for Eric Pritchard

Premiere performance by Eric Pritchard and Fred Raimi,
Feb. 10 2010 (Memorial Concert for Akanda), Nelson Music Room, Duke University

video (YouTube) MP3 recording WAV recording (CD quality)

PDF Score (letter size) Parts (f&b, legal size) Cover

I. Overture [5:24]

Moderato Akanda

II. A Catchy Little Tune

Aerobic Allegro [6:09]

           Eric Pritchard asked me to write a duet for violin and cello for performance in Spring 2010 with Fred Raimi, in a concert given by the Mallarme Chamber Players. The guidelines were that it should be in the tradition of such duets to be technically challenging, and to be between 10 and 15 minutes long.
          So, I took time off the composition of the Hanuman Chalisa portion of my Mantra Cantata to write this little duet. After the first day of composition, in the evening I heard that my sister Akanda had died the night before in Colorado. After several days when I could get back to writing music, the mood of the music seemed certain to reflect the moment.
          Once I had finished the second movement, I realized that to make a longer piece that made dramatic sense would probably need two more movements and thus would be longer than 15 minutes. If there is a general outcry for a longer work someday, then I might add some more music. The Ravel and Kodaly duets, the two most well-known violin-cello works, are both over 20 minutes.
          For printing on paper, there are legal-sized (8.5"x14") parts for each instrument with the other part included in reduced size. For electronic music readers, performers can use the letter-size (8.5"x11") score.

Musician Biographies

Eric Pritchard, violinist, has been a member of Ciompi Quartet since 1995 and was formerly the first violinist of the Alexander and Oxford Quartets. Mr. Pritchard has taught at Miami University, San Francisco State University, City University of New York and the North Carolina School of the Arts. He was winner of the National Federation of Music Clubs Award in Violin as well as the first-prize winner at the Portsmouth (England) International String Quartet Competition and the Coleman and Fischoff national chamber music competitions. He has performed widely as a recitalist and as soloist with the Boston Pops and orchestras in Europe and South America. His major teachers were Eric Rosenblith, Josef Gingold, Ivan Galamian and Isadore Tinkleman and he holds degrees from Indiana University and the Juilliard School. He has performed many works by Bill Robinson since 2006.

Fred Raimi, native of Detroit, taught cello at Duke, and was a member of the Ciompi Quartet from the early 1970’s until retirement in 2018. He won the International Cello Competition in Portugal, and plays an Italian cello more than three centuries old.