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Artist
Known for their dazzling original arrangements, creative and interactive performing style, and on-stage charisma, the virtuosic violin duo Les Deux offers riveting performances for today’s edgy concert scene. Hailed by the New York Examiner as "unarguably gifted with a keen ear for arranging", founding members Clare Elena Semes and Chelsea Starbuck Smith present to audiences a diverse repertoire from Bach to Chopin, Bernstein to the Beatles. The 2015 season continued a run of coast-to-coast debuts for the duo including featured performances at Rockwood Music Hall, Music Academy of the West, Pianos NYC, and the Santa Barbara Public Market. In addition to performing all-new original arrangements, the duo premiered a new violin duo, Rhapsody, written for them by Juilliard Doctoral composer Paul Frucht. Last season, the duo traveled around the United States – 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. Other feature performances included appearances at Music Academy of the West’s Cabaret Gala, and at Juilliard’s Beyond the Machine Electronics Festival and ChamberFEST series. Among the season’s world premieres was 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. Les Deux's original arrangements and i