Les Deux

Known for their original repertoire and arrangements of classical favorites, creative and interactive performing style, and on-stage charisma, the violin duo Les Deux offers riveting performances for today’s edgy concert scene. Reviewed by the Santa Barbara News Press as “surprising and sparkling,” founding members Clare Elena Semes and Chelsea Starbuck Smith present to audiences a diverse repertoire from Bach to Chopin, Bernstein to the Beatles. The duo's 2014-2015 season promises many highlights. In April, Les Deux will make their Connecticut debut in “A Musical Gift to Easton” presented by the Easton Arts Council. In May, the duo will travel coast to coast – appearing first at New York City’s Klavierhaus on 52nd Street presented by Project 142, and later at the Funk Zone in downtown Santa Barbara, CA as a part of Music Academy of the West’s Golf Invitational. Multiple world premieres will include the duo’s own conception, PROJECT VARIATION – a composition-collaboration between Les Deux and 10 New York City-based composers based on a theme from Holst’s The Planets. Chelsea and Clare met in 2010 as undergraduates at The Juilliard School and have been performing together ever since. Playing genres from classical to folk to electronic, Les Deux burst (literally) onto the scene in the summer of 2013 when they were a planned surprise at the Music Academy of the West’s July 4th Picnic Concert – running onto the stage through an exit door, the duo interrupted the concert with a “stirring rendition” (Music Academy of the West) of Sousa’s Stars and Stripes Forever. Featured 2013-2014 season performances include appearances at Music Academy of the West’s Cabaret Gala, and at Juilliard’s Beyond the Machine Electronics Festival and ChamberFEST series. They have performed in venues across the United States, including Hahn Hall at The Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara, Paul Hall at The Juilliard School, 180 Maiden Lane in downtown New York City, and the Santa Barbara Museum of Art. Les Deux is also dedicated to educational outreach around the New York City area where they present young people’s concerts at schools such as P.S. 84 and Temple Emanu-El. Both members are Gluck Community Service Fellows at The Juilliard School and perform at local hospitals and rehab facilities. The duo’s name draws inspiration from the artistic collective of the 1920s, Les Six, a group of six French composers working in Montparnasse. The avant-garde simplicity of Les Six's music is often seen as a reaction against the heavy romantic style of Richard Wagner and the lush impressionism of Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel. Clare and Chelsea like to think of their partnership as an artistic collective of their own – turning fun and casual time together into music and art. Clare Elena Semes, 22, is a student of Donald Weilerstein and Ronald Copes at the Juilliard School, where she holds the George Atlas Music Scholarship and the Marion Sunshine Scholarship. She has performed in numerous ensembles at Juilliard including the new music ensemble AXIOM and has served as concertmaster of the Juilliard Orchestra and the Juilliard Chamber Orchestra. She has performed as soloist with orchestras throughout the United States and Asia, including the Shanghai Philharmonic, Newark Symphony, Riverside Sinfonia, Ocean City Pops, Macau Youth Orchestra, among others. She has been heard on the popular NPR show From the Top, RTHK’s radio show Children’s Corner (Hong Kong), and at the Shanghai Concert Hall’s live Weekly Radio Broadcast. Upcoming engagements include solo appearances with the Eastern Connecticut Symphony Orchestra and the Orchestra of the Southern Finger Lakes. Clare has performed as a founding member of the Kleio Quartet at the Rhinebeck Chamber Music Society, the Mann Chamber Music Institute, and the YoungArts at the Metropolitan Museum of Art series, and Kneisel Hall. She has also appeared at the Aspen Music Festival, Sarasota Music Festival, Music Academy of the West, and will spend this coming summer at the Verbier Festival. Acclaimed as a violinist of “compelling presence, fearless attack, and technical aplomb and bravado” (New London's The Day), Chelsea Starbuck Smith, 22, is a young artist becoming recognized for her infectious enthusiasm for the violin. She has performed as solo and chamber artist in venues across the United States and abroad, including Avery Fisher Hall, Alice Tully Hall, Weill Recital Hall in Carnegie Hall, Palais de Fontainebleau in France, Centre National des Arts in Ottawa and Peter Jay Sharp Theater at The Juilliard School. Chelsea's solo debut in 2013 with the Eastern Connecticut Symphony Orchestra performing Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto was called a “show-stopper”, and she was described by music critic Milton Moore as “dominating the stage and electrifying her audience with her high-powered and knowing performance.” She has also appeared at the Meadowmount School of Music, Sarasota Music Festival and Spoleto Festival USA. Her performances have been featured on WMNR Fine Arts Radio and Connecticut Public Radio. Ms. Smith is an undergraduate at The Juilliard School where she studies with Sally Thomas, and holds the Juilliard Alumni and Karl H. Kraeuter Scholarships, and where she also graduated from their Pre-College Division as a student of Ann Setzer. Ms. Smith recently appeared on the 20th Century Fox Television series Glee, and is the featured violinist on The String Fingers Band’s debut bluegrass album Don’t Forget. Les Deux, co-founded by Juilliard graduates Clare Elena Semes and Chelsea Starbuck Smith, is a virtuosic violin duo that performs original arrangements.