The Bellingham Music Club’s Dynamic Duos series continues with Drs. Milica Jelaca Jovanovic and Marija Ilic playing Dvorak, Brahms, Schubert, Schumann, Ligeti, Bolcom, and Fauré. Thursday, Nov. 3, at 7:30 pm at First Congregational Church.
Piano Four Hands: The words carry us back to a more gracious time, when all food was organic and all music was live. A piano for every parlor, a pianist in every family — often two, synchronized by shared lives. Composers published lucrative four-hand versions of their waltzes, arias, whatever. Sometimes the music was for dancing, sometimes for dreaming; hence the title, “Fantasies and Dances”
Milica Jelaca Jovanovic and Marija Ilic — “Two completely unique pianists with subtly refined sound” — shared their own fantasies as girlhood chums in Serbia, then embarked on divergent but parallel careers. Today their friendship is bicoastal. Dr. Ilic sits on the faculty of Concordia Conservatory; Dr. Jelaca Jovanovic is an Associate Professor at Western. They established a formal collaboration in 2010, and have played at Belgrade, Sarajevo and Novi Sad. This season takes them to New York, Slovenia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina.
BMC Night Beat “Fantasies and Dances” for piano four hands is on Thursday, Nov. 3, at 7:30 pm, at First Congregational Church, 2401 Cornwall Ave, Bellingham. Tickets $15, online, at Village Books, or at the door.
Program highlights on Wednesday, Nov. 2, at 10:30 a.m. at First Congregational Church. Free and open to the public.