Schedule Of Events

July 13, 2025

3:00PM : Chicago Duo Piano Festival - Claire Aebersold & Ralph Neiweem

Festival Co-Founders and Music Institute Piano Duo in Residence Claire Aebersold Neiweem and Ralph Neiweem kick off the Festival with Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue and works by Schubert, Tchaikovsky and Eric Ewazen.

About Claire Aebersold and Ralph Neiweem

Claire Aebersold and Ralph Neiweem are among the most accomplished and acclaimed piano duos of their generation. Described as “consummate practitioners of pianism” (The Washington Post) they met in Italy in 1970 as young solo performers at a music festival in Umbria, were married in 1973 and have devoted themselves to the exclusive study of the duo repertoire since 1981. In 2020, Aebersold and Neiweem were awarded the inaugural career achievement award in Piano Duo by the Josef and Rosina Lhévinne Legacy Foundation. The duo are founders and directors of the NEA award-winning Chicago Duo Piano Festival, held annually at the Music Institute of Chicago.

They have also established and direct the Chicago International Duo Piano Competition, most recently held in June, 2016. The duo has commissioned significant new works for the piano duo, including Joseph Turrin’s Symmetries for Two Pianos; “Great Movements” Sonata for Piano, Four Hands by Patrick Byers, and Cries and Whispers by Robert Chumbley. Aebersold and Neiweem’s CDs on the Summit label include Four-Hand Reflections; the world premiere recording of the Brahms Piano Concerto No. 1 in the composer’s own arrangement for piano, four-hands, and volumes 1 and 2 of a complete traversal of Schubert’s four-hand music, praised by Gramophone Magazine as “utterly charming...warmly recommended.” Their editions of fourhand arrangements by Brahms and Mendelssohn have been published by Dover, International, and they have written award-winning articles for Clavier Magazine. Their most recent CD, Debussy Duo Piano Images, was released in July 2020 on Berto Records.

They are frequent guests on WFMT Radio in Chicago, where they performed a series of over thirty live broadcast concerts covering virtually the complete four-hand repertoire of the 19th and 20th centuries. The duo has appeared with orchestras internationally, including the Chicago Philharmonic and the Vienna Tonkünstler. Highlights of the duo’s past performances include the University of Vermont Lane Series, the Detroit Institute of Art, and the Gina Bachauer series in Salt Lake City, Utah, and many recitals at the International Music Festival “PittenClassics” in Austria.

They have been heard in recital in many cities throughout the USA and Europe, including Chicago, New York, Detroit, Washington, D.C., Santa Fe, Vienna, Rome, Florence and Odessa, Ukraine. In Italy alone they have given over 200 recitals throughout Tuscany and Umbria. Performances in New York include a pair of all-Schubert recitals at the Goethe Institute, and a 25th anniversary celebration concert at Merkin Hall.

Claire Aebersold is a native of Oak Ridge, Tennessee and is a graduate of the New England Conservatory. Ralph Neiweem hails from Evanston, Illinois and is a graduate of the Juilliard School. Their  common teachers include Irwin Freundlich, Theodore Lettvin, John Browning and Orazio Frugoni, at whose urging they became a duo. They are currently Artists-in-Residence at the Music Institute of Chicago.

Cost : $30 General Admission

July 15, 2025

7:00PM : Chicago Duo Piano Festival - Faculty Extravaganza

Music Institute piano faculty perform a mixed program of works for piano duo, including music by Beethoven, Schubert, Rachmaninoff, Florence Price, Gershwin, and Lutoslawski. Faculty duos include Marie Alatalo and Ann Chang, Soo Young Lee and Jeong-Min Lee, Soo Young Lee and Lisa Zilberman, Inah Chiu and Sung Hoon Mo, Brenda Huang and Alexander Djordjevic, Mio Isoda and Matthew Hagle, and Louise Chan and Susan Tang.

Cost : $30 General Admission

July 18, 2025

7:00PM : Chicago Duo Piano Festival - Duo Turgeon

Join the critically acclaimed Duo Turgeon for a sparkling duo piano program. Regarded as one of the top piano duos of our time, the Turgeons have given hundreds of performances, including their European debut at the Concertgebouw of Amsterdam and New York debut at Weill Recital Hall. 

Duo Turgeon will perform works by Brahms, Dvorák, Debussy, and Rachmaninoff and “Winter at Gros Cap” by Anne Louise-Turgeon.

About Anne Louise-Turgeon and Edward Turgeon

Born in Montreal and Toronto respectively, Canadian pianists Anne Louise-Turgeon and Edward Turgeon have been playing together since 1988, and performing professionally since 1996. Critically acclaimed as one of the top piano duos of our time, the Turgeons have given hundreds of performances, including a European debut at the Concertgebouw of Amsterdam, and a New York debut at Weill Recital Hall. Festival appearances include Sanibel Chamber Music, San Francisco International Chamber Music, Montreal International Duo Piano, Duettissimo (Minsk), and Novosibirsk International Duo Piano, among others.

The Turgeons appear on seven compact discs, and they have been heard in numerous broadcasts on classical music stations throughout the world including National Public Radio's Performance Today, BBC, ABC, WNYC, WPR, MPR, WGBH, Dutch Public Radio, and numerous CBC programs.

The Turgeon’s prizes and awards include first prize in the Sixth International Schubert Competition for Piano Duos (Czech Republic, 1995) and first prize in the prestigious Murray Dranoff International Two Piano Competition (Miami, 1997).

The Turgeons are graduates of the University of Toronto and Yale University, where they earned doctorate degrees in the year 2000. They received the highest graduating awards and prizes from both institutions. Anne's teachers included Marietta Orlov, Boris Berman, Karl Heinz Kammerling, Marek Jablonski, Claude Frank and John O'Connor. Edward's teachers included James Anagnoson, Peter Frankl,Donald Currier and Claude Frank. Duo Turgeon received duo piano, and one piano, four-hand coaching from James Anagnoson, Karl Ulrich Schnabel and Peter Serkin.

The Turgeons have served on the faculties of Algoma University College, Algoma Conservatory, Mount Holyoke College, the HARID Conservatory and Florida Atlantic University. They currently serve as keyboard faculty and ensemble-in-residence at Florida Atlantic University’s Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters, School of the Arts, in Boca Raton.

Cost : General Admission: $30

July 19, 2025

10:00AM : Chicago Duo Piano Festival - Master Class: Duo Turgeon

Chicago Duo Piano Festival special guest artists Anne and Edward Turgeon lead a master class for student participants.

About Anne Louise-Turgeon and Edward Turgeon 

Born in Montreal and Toronto respectively, Canadian pianists Anne Louise-Turgeon and Edward Turgeon have been playing together since 1988, and performing professionally since 1996. Critically acclaimed as one of the top piano duos of our time, the Turgeons have given hundreds of performances, including a European debut at the Concertgebouw of Amsterdam, and a New York debut at Weill Recital Hall. Festival appearances include Sanibel Chamber Music, San Francisco International Chamber Music, Montreal International Duo Piano, Duettissimo (Minsk), and Novosibirsk International Duo Piano, among others.

The Turgeons appear on seven compact discs, and they have been heard in numerous broadcasts on classical music stations throughout the world including National Public Radio's Performance Today, BBC, ABC, WNYC, WPR, MPR, WGBH, Dutch Public Radio, and numerous CBC programs.

The Turgeon’s prizes and awards include first prize in the Sixth International Schubert Competition for Piano Duos (Czech Republic, 1995) and first prize in the prestigious Murray Dranoff International Two Piano Competition (Miami, 1997).

The Turgeons are graduates of the University of Toronto and Yale University, where they earned doctorate degrees in the year 2000. They received the highest graduating awards and prizes from both institutions. Anne's teachers included Marietta Orlov, Boris Berman, Karl Heinz Kammerling, Marek Jablonski, Claude Frank and John O'Connor. Edward's teachers included James Anagnoson, Peter Frankl,Donald Currier and Claude Frank. Duo Turgeon received duo piano, and one piano, four-hand coaching from James Anagnoson, Karl Ulrich Schnabel and Peter Serkin.

The Turgeons have served on the faculties of Algoma University College, Algoma Conservatory, Mount Holyoke College, the HARID Conservatory and Florida Atlantic University. They currently serve as keyboard faculty and ensemble-in-residence at Florida Atlantic University’s Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters, School of the Arts, in Boca Raton.

Cost : Free and open to the public

July 20, 2025

2:00PM : Chicago Duo Piano Festival - Student Recital

The Chicago Duo Piano Festival closes with a student recital featuring a variety of works for duo piano.

Cost : Free and open to the public.

Date : July 13-20, 2025

Location :

Music Institute of Chicago, 

1490 Chicago Avenue

Evanston, IL 60201

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