Piano/cello duo Ines Irawati and Sophie Webber performs works by Schumann, Bach, Paganini, Fauré, Saint-Saëns, Wagner/Liszt, Manuel de Falla, Liszt, and more.
Webber (Fused Muse Ensemble), who performs regularly in solo and chamber music settings in the USA and Great Britain, relocated to the San Diego area in in 2015, where she began teaching privately and recording the complete Bach Suites for solo cello. By 2016, she was working on an album of her own compositions for voice, cello, and electronics.
Indonesian born pianist Irawati, who has won numerous awards, has performed in venues such as Severance Hall and Carnegie Hall, as well as serving as a frequent soloist with Orchestra Nova before becoming a vocal coach at Point Loma Nazarene University.
As of 2017, Irawati was also playing with the Aviara Trio, alongside Erin Breene (Camarada) on cello and Robert Schumitzky on his 1694 Stradivarius violin. Schumitzky has played first violin for Orange County's Pacific Symphony and the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra. Breene has played with the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra.
A new duo album was released in late 2022, Roots: Transcriptions of Romantic Works for Cello and Piano, by composers such as Fauré, Schumann, De Falla, and Massenet, as well as some other romantic/twentieth century romantic favorites. Says the duo, "Our vision for our new album was to bring together a collection of favourite romantic works from the Cello and Piano literature which are all transcriptions from another instrumentation. Originally composed for voice (Fauré, Liszt and Falla), violin (Brahms and Massenet), and clarinet (Schumann), we felt the reinstrumentation of these works exemplifies the versatility of the Cello and Piano. Furthermore, we felt it allows for a certain freshness of interpretation, while still being cognizant of the composers original writing and the expressive qualities of the instrument/voice for which each work was initially conceived."
(Photo courtesy La Jolla Athenaeum)