Acclaimed husband-and-wife piano duo Ning Lu and Jie Lu will be performing a free concert at Brigham Young University’s Madsen Recital Hall Tuesday, Nov. 2, at 7:30 p.m.
In the concert, they will be performing Mozart’s only Sonata for Two Pianos and a piece by George Gershwin.
The duo was first presented at the 2007 Gina Bachauer International Piano Festival and has served on many juries for the Bachauer competitions. Ning and Jie both serve as music faculty at the University of Utah.
Both born in China, they met at the University of Colorado while studying piano.
“After we were married she became my study partner,” Ning said. “I would listen to her, and she would listen to me and we would critique each other.”
In 2007, Paul Pollei, former BYU piano professor, recommended that the two join forces and play some pieces together.
“It changed things,” Ning said. “We do work on our own music still but when we play together, we have to work on listening to the other person and see how our playing affects the other’s performance. We spend a lot more time listening to each other and finding a balance.”
Ning Lu is an associate professor of piano and coordinator of group piano at the university. He made his professional debut and first recording at the age of nine and studied piano at the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing, where he won the first prize in the piano competition of the Central Conservatory of Music.
Jie Lu is an adjunct assistant professor in the Piano Preparatory Division at the university. She has won several piano competitions in the United States and has appeared with the Jefferson Symphony Orchestra, SummerArts Orchestra and Salt Lake Symphony. Recently, she was appointed the guest professor at Nanjing University in China.
For more information, contact Scott Holden at scott_holden@byu.edu.
Writer: Brandon Garrett
