Questions Frequently Asked

After our concerts, many folks ask us the same questions; the kind of questions you won’t find answered in a standard musician bio…

Q: Do you come from a musical family?
Elizabeth: “Absolutely! The music-making gene was inherited from our mom’s family; she is an incredible classically-trained soprano; her brother an outstanding tenor and choral director, and their father a completely self-taught fiddle-player and guitarist of the highest level. Our parents selflessly sacrificed their time and money to ensure that we both got the lessons, training, and instruments we needed. They still do, in fact.”

Q: How far apart in age are you? 
Alison: “I was nearly 12 when Elizabeth was born and there are no other siblings. However, I like it when sweet little old ladies ask if we are twins. If Elizabeth is out of range to kick me, I say ‘yes’.” 

Q: How did classical music lessons work living so far out in the country?
Alison: “It was an uphill battle! While I was growing up, we lived nearly an hour from a city large enough to offer music lessons. I usually had two or more lessons a week in piano and violin, so the family car packed on the miles while homework and dinner was often done on the road. Elizabeth came along and basically spent her childhood in a car seat. Because our part of the country is not known for classical music, I had difficulty in finding teachers who were able to properly guide me. I was a late starter in piano (at age 9!) and as teachers came and went in our area there were large gaps in my musical education. I would often go months, and once a year or more, with little training; muddling through piano repertoire the best way I could on my own.

It wasn’t until I was 20 years old that I finally had a teacher, Dr. Mark Zeltser, who was willing give me nearly daily lessons for a year in order to take me all the way down to the bare essentials and start over from there; warning me that it would be the hardest work I had ever done… and he was right! He showed me how to practice, how to listen, and how to teach myself; it was from him that I learned the skills that I still use every single day and how important good training is from a young age.”

Q: Elizabeth did most of her young training in Dallas; how did that occur?
Elizabeth: “I began violin lessons while Alison was in college. I was studying with a local Louisiana teacher, but our dad lost his job working for Enron during their great scandal, and due to financial reasons, Alison actually taught me violin for a year while he was without work. But let’s face it… no one wants to learn music from their older sister; mostly we just got into sword-fights with our bows!  After she began graduate school in Texas, Alison asked her own violin professor at the University of North Texas, Dr. Chu Yunn Lee, if she was open to teaching me. We are both forever grateful that she said yes! My mom made the the 8-hour round trip for those vitally important lessons each week. After my sister graduated and moved back to Louisiana, she also helped with the long commute, but by the time I was 14, I needed four hours of lessons each week from Dr. Lee… we just couldn’t do that much driving! So Alison and I moved together to the DFW area, where she became my homeschool instructor (thank goodness for math tutors), driving teacher (honk first, apologize later!), and built-in pianist. We’ve been roomies together ever since!”

Q: You live together, travel together, and make music together, is there anything you don’t do well together?
Alison:  “Canoeing. We nearly drowned each other in knee-deep water on the Bronx River. Liz says it’s completely my fault but I know that we didn’t end up tangled in that fallen tree because of me.”  (Eyewitness stories may vary.)

Q: How did you finally end up in New York City?
Elizabeth: “When I decided to audition for college, with the guidance of Dr. Lee, I selected a few schools to try for, some for practical reasons and some just to see what they were like. Alison and I prayed that God would show us where he would like us to end up and he made it very clear that New York City was it! We shelved our doubts moved there with the intent of trying it for only one year. But I loved my teacher and we were so continually surprised and grateful for all the opportunities we were given in that strange, exciting, yet unforgiving city, that we decided to make it our home. Until the pandemic, that is!”

Q: How did you begin writing music for violin and piano?
Alison: “I had never written anything more than a music theory homework assignment until after I graduated with my Masters degree. I was so focused on piano performance that it never occurred to me that I might also enjoy writing music. While Elizabeth and I were still commuting to DFW for her violin lessons and my piano career was slowly beginning to form with solo concerts and engagements, our mom suffered a bad fall and was completely debilitated with a severely broken leg for nearly 2 years. Liz was not yet driving age and our dad had to work, so the tides reversed and I became my mom’s chauffeur to multiple surgeries, doctor’s appointments, and physical therapy sessions as she learned to walk again. My piano career was put on indefinite hold and I became bored and frustrated. From her wheelchair, my mom suggested that I write something for Liz and I to play in church; I initially thought she was crazy, but I finally got so bored that I agreed to set her favorite hymn. That’s how our first duo arrangement, Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing, came about. I discovered that it was actually fun to imagine all the musical possibilities with the hymns we had grown up singing. I had so many ideas that I couldn’t wait to get started on the next one!

Q: What inspires your violin and piano arrangements? 
Alison: “I always treat the violin and piano equally in my pieces because that is the essence of duo music; it allows us to have musical ‘conversations’ and we can demonstrate the huge variety of sounds that are possible together. Many of my hymn arrangements follow the text of the song lyrics, though sometimes I just want to do something completely crazy, just for fun… that’s how a few of my tangos came into being! I’m fortunate that Elizabeth is always up for trying new ideas and concepts, plus she has an excellent ear and is brutally honest with me when something doesn’t work! When I first started writing, I did what most pianists would do and asked myself, “How would Rachmaninoff write this?”. However, living and working in New York City was life-changing, as it broadened my horizons and exposure to living composers. We live in such a musically exciting time right now; with highly accessible and engaging styles of composition that have emerged from John Adams, Philip Glass, Max Richter, Meredith Monk, Richard Danielpour, and others. Many of my newer works and arrangements show this influence. And I love to hide “Easter eggs” in our music; hidden references to classical music, popular music, and movie music; especially the scores of John Williams!”

Q: What will you do now that Covid-19 has changed everything for musicians?
Alison: We are all still figuring this one out! In many ways; what Liz and I do will not change. I will still write music for us. Elizabeth has invested in new camera and recording equipment and has become somewhat of a tech whiz; learning how to record and edit audio/video for our YouTube channel. She now goes around saying things like “If we put the Z-64 bit adaptor through the Qualticor interface while adjusting the radiant verbiology to negative two, you’ll notice that the overall quality of the exfoliating diodes increases by 73%!”  (I always nod, knowingly, as if this was completely obvious.)” 

Elizabeth: “We do have the advantage of being able to safely make music while being completely masked. And although we’ve had to cancel and postpone many concerts this past year, we’ve been blessed to be able to play within various worship services. Recently, we’ve begun preparation for some upcoming, socially-distanced concerts. Live music still matters in church and in concert and being creative has not been cancelled. We just have to find new ways to keep moving forward in this profession.”