NW Guitar Festival: Duo Noire in Concert

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Equal Opportunity Institution. 24+ hours advance notice is appreciated for accommodations.

Duo Noire is a “virtuosic pair” (I Care if You Listen) of the pioneering American classical guitarists, Thomas Flippin and Christopher Mallett. Focusing on audience-friendly contemporary music, their concerts offer “profoundly enjoyable” genre-bending repertoire with “spectacular precision” (St. Louis Post- Dispatch).

After their 2014 EP release, FIGMENTS, featuring Juilliard professor Raymond Lustig’s masterful 30-minute composition for the duo, Duo Noire gained international prominence with the 2018 release of their full-length debut album, Night Triptych, on New Focus Recordings. Named as an Editor’s Choice for top classical music albums of 2018 by both All Music and I Care if You Listen, the album featured new works exclusively written for Duo Noire by accomplished women composers: GRAMMY-nominee Clarice Assad, Courtney Bryan, E.C.M. Artist Golfam Khayam, Mary Kouyoumdjian, Gity Razaz, and Gabriella Smith. The project was launched with a 2015 grant from the Diller-Quaile School of Music to help the duo make classical guitar concerts more gender-inclusive. The album was hailed as an “astounding…goldmine of ideas and feelings” (Stereophile), a “marvelous recital” (Limelight Magazine), “truly pathbreaking” (All Music), and “an important disc” (The Arts Fuse).

Recent and upcoming projects include giving the world premiere of GRAMMY-nominee Nathalie Joachim’s new work for Duo Noire, filming a premiere recording at Severance Hall with members of The Cleveland Orchestra, and premiering new works by virtuoso Yale guitar professor Benjamin Verdery and U.C. Santa Cruz composition professor Karlton Hester. 

Duo Noire’s work has been featured in Acoustic Guitar Magazine, Classical Guitar Magazine, the Guitar Foundation of America’s journal Soundboard, and Chamber Music Magazine. Their recordings have aired on radio stations nationwide, including WQXR’s New Sounds in NYC. Past highlights include fellowships for contemporary music at the Avaloch Farm Music Institute and the Norfolk Music Festival in Connecticut, as well as concerts at China’s Peking University, the 92 Street Y, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Georgetown University, the New York City and St. Louis Classical Guitar societies, the Omaha Under the Radar and April in Santa Cruz new music festivals, and at the Times Center playing for the MacDowell Colony.

Thomas and Christopher are graduates of the Yale School of Music. Their name is a combination of “Noir” (Black) and “La Noire” (quarter note). 

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