Team players hit the right note

These two young pianists like to see how the creative process is affected by personalities coming together, writes Arminta Wallace

'Look at that," exclaims Cassie Yukawa. We look. Seated squatly in a corner of the hotel corridor is a contraption which features steel rods and brushes. "It's a shoeshine thingy," she says, gazing at it in apparent rapture.

"Most hotels don't have them yet."

Rosey Chan hauls yet another to-die-for designer handbag out of the lift, examines the gizmo briefly and nods. "Well," she says with an air of finality. "That's our business idea down the drain, then." Yukawa and Chan, aka the Yukawa-Chan Piano Duo, are still laughing as they decant themselves and their luggage into their respective bedrooms.

They are about to embark, not on a hotel shoeshine-machine feasibility study, but on a whirlwind Music Network tour which will see them bring a programme of Mozart, Debussy and De Falla to seven venues around the country.

Whirlwind is the word for these energetic young pianists. Although they gave their first professional concert together just a year ago, they're already making a name for themselves on the UK music scene. When they finish their Irish tour they'll be packing those capacious bags and heading back to London's Royal Festival Hall to premiere a piece which is, even as we speak, being written for them by Michael Nyman.

"He has promised us the music by March 6th," says Yukawa. "We'll have to - you know - work on it while we're here."

Squashed around a tiny table in her room, they are a study in contrasts: she dainty and trendy and bird-like, Chan tall and measured and sporting one of those baggy cable-knit sweaters whose sleeves look suspiciously as if someone has been chewing them. Yukawa answers questions in fluttering semi-quaver phrases, Chan in a series of elegantly modulated chords. What gave them the idea of playing together as a duo?

"It's funny, because we've known each other from the age of eight or nine," Chan explains.

"Or at least, we knew of each other. But we never met. When we were competing for prizes she'd be on one side of the hall and I'd be on the other, staring at each other, waiting for the adjudicator to announce who was the winner. We ended up going to the same music conservatory - and to the same professor [Yonty Solomon at London's Royal College of Music]. In my lessons I'd be playing, maybe, a Chopin sonata or something. And he'd point to a bar and say, 'It's really strange. You play this bar with an odd interpretation - and Cassie does the same thing.' This happened on so many occasions that I thought, 'That's really curious. I want to get to know this girl.' But we never really talked - did we?"

She turns to Yukawa, who shakes her head no. "It was like we were on each other's radar," she says. "But there was a competitive edge as well. Another girl - another Asian girl, into the bargain - being at the same college. So when Rosey sent a text message to my boyfriend's mobile to see if we could get together to play a concert, it came out of nowhere." They tried out some repertoire together, and found that not only did they like the musical result, they enjoyed the musical journey as well.

"I find it more fun practising with someone," says Chan. "because we're exchanging ideas and challenging each other all the time. Before, I used to practise day in and day out on my own. Now I've got someone to do stuff with, to pat on the back, to . . . whatever."

For Yukawa, it's the space they create as two artists collaborating on stage that's most important.

"I don't even have a clear definition of where the work begins, because I don't see it as work - it's more of a musical exploration, a spirit of music-making, to share the whole thing with another pianist rather than having a very introverted experience on stage."

AS THEIR PIANO professor correctly surmised, despite their very different personalities the two share an overall approach to musical interpretation. "Our sense of rubato and feel for dark and light colours are very similar," Chan explains. "That's, I think, what our professor was picking up on."

"But, adds Yukawa, "the way I would choose to shape a solo melody might be slightly different. We don't actually try to be identical at all. There is an approach to duo playing which says that both players should be exactly matched - play phrases exactly the same way, and so forth. For us it's a dialogue.

"We're quite careful about choosing repertoire which give us different responsibilities at different times. But we also like to leave a lot of room for spontaneity - and we take a lot of risks during performance. That's something we feed off."

For this tour the two-piano duo format will be transformed into a single-instrument duet. "Playing together at one piano is completely different. We've had to choreograph quite a lot of the hand movements, just from a purely practical point of view. That's a new thing for us - and it has been very good for us," says Yukawa.

Innovation is something they regard as crucial - even urgent - in the somewhat rarefied environment of the classical recital.

"We're really keen to find new forms of presenting classical concerts," says Chan. "So many of our friends say they're uncomfortable going to classical concerts, with everybody very strait-laced . . . the music is fantastic but the ambience isn't, always."

They share a long-standing passion for photography, and Yukawa is interested in experimental theatre and film - so some sort of collaborative approach might, they reckon, be the way to go.

"We want to collaborate with various art forms - electronics, visuals, dancers," says Yukawa. "There are several projects bubbling. We can't say a great deal yet, but we're very excited by that sort of dimension where we bring in other performers and see how the creative process is affected by personalities coming together."

THE FORTHCOMING PROJECTS include that interdisciplinary festival with Nyman at the Royal Festival Hall. They are also due to record a CD with the composer in the coming months. And they are, they insist, aware of the dangers of introducing a multi-media element simply for the sake of, as they put it, "having a big screen in the corner on which you can do clever things".

"We want it to be integrated - to use lots of elements in a really symbiotic way," Yukawa explains.

"Classical performance style just hasn't evolved; and lots of people don't feel classical music is relevant to their lives. That's how they feel. Which is a shame because classical music is full of drama, excitement - eroticism, even. So the people who don't go to concerts are the ones who are missing out. I mean, we're young and we go to concerts, and we have a passion for music, whether it be hip-hop or whatever. We have a huge range of musical tastes between us."

Theirs is possibly the first classical biog ever to feature Eminem, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan and Keith Jarrett alongside Ligeti and Mitsuko Uchida. Chan, it seems, goes for jazz and R'n'B, while Yukawa is the hip-hop fan.

"Yeah," she says. "I love Eminem. There's such a drive in the way he phrases the music and sings the words. I get into that. I like lots of dance music, and I also like experimental contemporary music. Anything that's not too predictable."

If she's been asked to sum up the Yukawa-Chan duo in a single sentence, she couldn't have done it better.

The Yukawa-Chan duo begin their tour in Drogheda (Droichead Arts Centre) today, then continue to Moate (Tuar Ard Arts Centre, tomorrow), Birr (Oxmantown Hall, Sun), Castlebar (Linenhall Arts Centre, Mon), Dublin (Coach House, Dublin Castle, Wed), Wexford (St Iberius Church, Mar 10), Bray (Mermaid Arts Centre, Mar 11) and Portlaoise (Dunamaise Theatre, Mar 12). Information from www.musicnetwork.ie or 01-6719429