The Radical Cut

The piano duet Ivan Šiller and Andrea Bálešová – Mudroňová was based in 2002, yet during the period of their common years of study at the Royal Conservatory in Gent. The chamber music they studied at the eminent pedagog of the chamber play – Marcel Lequeux, who acted as a guest pedagog at the Queen Elizabeth Contest in Brussel. In. 2004 they participated in Jan Michiels Master´s Interpreter Course, later they went on studying the chamber play in his master´s classroom at the Institute for the postgradual education – Orpheus Institute Gent (Belgium). In 2004 they were selected by the Royal Conservatory Gent as the most perspective chamber line-up for the representative festival to Limburg. They gave concerts in Slovakia, Belgium, Holland. Their repertoir includes works from periods of baroque, clasicism, romantism up to 20th century music. They like to present works of contemporary composers. During their concerting activity they have implemented more projects: Premieres of compositions for four-hand piano play by contemporary Flemish composers (2004), musically – educational projects Dialogues. They gave concerts in the frame of festivals Melos Etos, New Slovak Music, Convergencie, SPACE and many others. At present they accomplish the concert orientated project „Games“ focussed on the presentation of children piano creation in 20th century. This record originated as a result of our long collaboration as a duet, as organisers and performers. During the last five years we have carried out together several artistic and educational projects. Our common intention was to address the audience not only by the music but also by comments on the music. It is in this sense therefore that we also approach you. For a long time we have been focused on the music of the 20th and 21st centuries. The selection of compositions serves our goal to present this music on the largest scale and to focus on the professional listener as well as on the large audience and to attract both children and adults. The title Radical Cut is also the name of one of the compositions present on this CD and it symbolically reflects our decision to put finally our record into practice. We hope that you will take interest in the music on our CD, just as we have, and that it will find a way into your hearts. Ivan and Andrea