Faces of Music & Sound

Duo Diorama

Minghuan Xu, violin, U.S.
Winston Choi, piano, U.S.
Chamber Music

Minghuan Xu and Winston Choi are two very talented musicians who are absolutely spectacular as an ensemble. The duo was recently named winners of the Artists International Audition in New York, which will see them on the stage of Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall in February 2006. The duo was also named the inaugural recipients of The Banff Centre’s Rolston Fellowship in Music, which brought them to Banff for the three-week chamber music program in 2005. On their own, Minghuan and Winston have made several commendable achievements – Winston is a laureate of the 2003 Honens International Piano Competition and winner of France’s 2002 Concours International de Piano d’Orleans, and Minghuan has performed across China and the U.S. while pursuing a doctoral degree at Stony Brook University in New York.

Together, the duo are advocates of contemporary music and have commissioned and premiered dozens of works by American composers. While in Banff, the duo had the opportunity to focus entirely on their artistic development as a duo, spending time together rehearsing, gathering input from the program faculty, and performing on various concert stages.

Following the three week residency in Banff, Winston said: “We came away with a new sense of purpose and with our artistic ideals more fine-tuned. The Banff Centre is a refreshing, inspiring, and invigorating place to be.”

Listen to a clip of Duo Diorama performing Strauss’s Sonata for Violin and Piano in E flat, Op. 18 at the 2005 Banff Summer Arts Festival.

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