Carlisle Beresford and Pearl-Lynne Chen

Pearl and Carlisle have been playing together since they fell in love fourteen years ago. As a professional ensemble, their milieu is the piano duet. Favoured by the great composers for over 250 years and yet long derided by the musical establishment as being the ‘ugly duckling of chamber music’, four hands duets enable pianists to perform the entire mainstream orchestral repertoire in intimate settings. In 2014, Pearl and Carlisle were the unanimous winners of the biannual Northwest International Piano Ensemble Competition, playing exclusively on one instrument, instead of the traditionally preferred medium of two pianos. Together they have founded the Toronto Piano Ensemble Society, which welcomes aspiring musicians of all levels of ability to share the joyous world of communal pianism.