Staatskapelle Halle & Ariane Matiakh
Biography Staatskapelle Halle & Ariane Matiakh
Mona & Rica Bard
already started playing together in their childhood and have been playing piano four hands and at two pianos ever since. In addition to their studies with the piano duo Hans- Peter and Volker Stenzl, they have drawn important artistic inspiration from their work with the duo Yaara Tal/Andreas Groethuysen as well as from Katia Labèque, Leonard Hokanson, Konstanze Eickhorst and Alfons Kontarsky.
The Duo won national and international awards (e.g. German Music Competition, Twenty Fingers Rome) and was accepted in the National Selection of Young Artists’ Concerts of the German Music Council (Deutscher Musikrat) and in the artists’ roster of the association Yehudi Menuhin – Live Music Now.
A considerable number of recitals lead Mona & Rica Bard throughout Europe, to Asia and the USA, to renowned festivals such as the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Festival, the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival, the NCPA May Festival in Beijing and the Chicago Piano Duo Festival. Orchestral engagements include appearances with Deutsche Staatsphilharmonie Rheinland-Pfalz, Gürzenich Kammerorchester, Nationaltheater-Orchester Mannheim, Brandenburgisches Staatsorchester Frankfurt, Kurpfälzisches Kammerorchester, Duisburger and Heidelberger Philharmoniker. Among their musical partners, the sisters count the percussionists of the Berlin Philharmonic, Li Biao, KrausFrink Percussion, the jazz pianist and composer Uri Caine as well as the conductors Ariane Matiakh and Yannick Nézet-Séguin.
Numerous concert, radio and television recordings document the artistic versatility of the duo. In 2012 the Piano Duo Mona & Rica Bard recorded their debut album PAS DE DEUX (audite/Deutschlandradio Kultur) with French music for piano duo, receiving outstanding acclaim by the international music press.
In April 2015, the label Capriccio released the sisters` second album: together with Deutsche Staatsphilharmonie Rheinland-Pfalz under the baton of French conductor Ariane Matiakh they recorded the concertos for two pianos and orchestra by Francis Poulenc and Jean Françaix (the latter as first CD recording ever since the composer`s own LP recording in 1967).
