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Cheng² Duo to perform in Quesnel next week

The siblings have performed all over the world
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Bryan and Silvie Cheng. Harald Hoffmann photo

Siblings Silvie and Bryan Cheng have been playing classical music for most of their lives.

Silvie took up the piano when she was five, after playing a keyboard on a road trip with her parents and falling in love with music. Bryan, her younger brother, wanted to learn an instrument as well. But he had no interest in playing the same one as his elder sister. Instead, at around three and a half, he took up the cello.

The pair, now 27 and 21 years old respectively, have played together all over the world. They’ve played in Europe and Asia and toured across China and Canada, as well as in the U.S.

Although they’ve been playing together for about the last 16 years, they first appeared together as The Cheng² Duo in 2011, when they performed at Carnegie Hall, the legendary venue in New York City. They’ve since performed there together a total of three times, while Silvie has performed there five times.

Bryan says performing in Carnegie Hall is “amazing.” It’s one of the duo’s favourite venues, he says. It’s intimate and also has close ties to some of the greatest musicians.

Another highlight in their career as musicians, adds Silvie, was their tour across China in 2016. Every night they performed, the majority of their audience was made up of young children, under 12 years old, which Silvie says was a very different experience for them.

“But [in China], music education is flourishing, and also there are many children who grow up playing an instrument and that’s just kind of a new norm there. It’s a very booming part of the world for classical music,” she says.

They toured during the hot summer months, and after each show, there would be someone handing ice cream.

“But then the funniest thing was that the ice cream people were complaining that the ice cream was melting because all the kids wanted to meet us and get their autographs and pictures. And so the line for ice cream was non-existent, but the line to come see us was very long.”

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Both siblings love to have the younger generation at their shows.

“It’s really heartwarming for us because that’s how we grew up watching the musicians that we admired coming to our hometown, Ottawa, and performing,” says Bryan. “And we loved interacting with them and getting our CDs signed by them. So to be able to continue that sort of cycle as musicians now is really rewarding.”

They say one of the greatest things about performing together is the bond they share, both on and off the stage, as siblings and the trust.

“I think when you’ve been [performing] with someone — someone you’re not only related to but someone you’ve just been working with in general for over a decade — you just know that when you walk on stage, no matter what happens, there’s a sense of having each other’s backs,” says Silvie. “But, also at this point, we know each other so well that we can take risks and be a little more spontaneous with our music making, kind of in the moment.”

The duo are spending the next five weeks touring around northern B.C. and the Yukon. It’s their first time visiting a majority of the cities on their 14-concert tour, and they will also be teaching workshops and masterclasses for kids along the way.

Neither have been to Quesnel before but both agree that visiting new places and seeing more of the world — and Canada specifically — is one of the best parts of being a musician.

“Our friends and family joke that we’ve seen probably more of the country than the prime minister has,” Silvie laughs.

The Quesnel audience is also in for a special treat: Bryan will be playing a Stradivarius cello from the year 1696. The instrument is his on a three-year loan from the Canada Council for the Arts Musical Instrument Bank.

The Cheng² Duo will be performing in Quesnel Tuesday, Jan. 22, at the Chuck Mobley Theatre at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are available at Green Tree Health and Wellness, K-Max, Save-On-Foods, The Occidental and at the door.



heather.norman@quesnelobserver.com

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