WELCOME!
We are a professional duet team of sisters who have been sharing music since childhood.
TWO SISTERS, FOUR HANDS
Nanette was accepted to the Juilliard School Pre-College Division as a scholarship student at the age of nine, and Iris followed soon after beginning her piano study there. Practicing long hours, we battled for prime practice time on the one Steinway grand piano in our suburban Long Island home. We pursued our own paths, occasionally playing duets for informal family gatherings. After one such event in 1987, we discovered that despite disparate musical training, our bond as sisters provided a remarkable sense of shared artistic sensibilities, and that we were more simpatico with each other than with any other piano partner either of us had experienced. Thus, the Kaplan Duo was launched.
We bring to the rich four-hand repertoire a unique blend of individual virtuosity and exciting interpretations. We have appeared on numerous concert series on the East Coast and have performed for prestigious organizations in Washington, New York, Cincinnati, Puerto Rico, Philadelphia, Santa Fe, San Antonio, and Ghent, Belgium. In 2019, the Kaplan Duo was awarded a seed money grant from the New York Women Composers, Inc. to promote the works of contemporary composers in that association.
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
IRIS KAPLAN ROSENTHAL
Iris Kaplan Rosenthal, pianist, received her early training as a scholarship student at the Juilliard School Pre-College Division. She received her bachelor of music degree from the University of Michigan School of Music, and both masters and doctoral degrees from New York University. Her teachers have included Louis Nagel, Gregory Haimovsky, and the late Edgar Roberts, Joseph Villa and Antonio Barbosa. Dr. Rosenthal has studied the Alexander Technique as a student of Linda Babits which culminated in her doctoral dissertation, “The Experience of Pianists Who Have Studied the Alexander Technique: Six Case Studies. Dr. Rosenthal has been a recipient of the Five Towns Music and Art 25th Anniversary Scholarship, the Nell Stockwell Award, and the Port Washington Music Advisory Award.
She has performed as a soloist and chamber musician throughout the United States and abroad. This included a performance in Eisenstadt, Austria as part of the International Workshops. Dr. Rosenthal and her sister, pianist Nanette Kaplan Solomon, perform as the Kaplan Duo in the New York area and many venues on the east coast. They have performed and presented at conferences in Belgium, Puerto Rico, San Antonio, and Santa Fe. Dr. Rosenthal is pleased to be performing with a new collaboration, Island Muses, a trio for flute, cello and piano. She is currently a free-lance musician and piano accompanist. Dr. Rosenthal has taught at C.W. Post College, Penn State University, Poly Prep Country Day School, and the Stecher and Horowitz School of Music.
NANETTE KAPLAN SOLOMON
Nanette Kaplan Solomon, pianist and Professor of Music Emerita at Slippery Rock University, performs frequently as soloist and chamber musician. She has presented lecture-recitals at national meetings of the College Music Society throughout the United States and Canada, and has performed at every CMS biannual international conference in Europe, Central America, South America, and Australia since their inception in 1995. Dr. Solomon's involvement with the works of women composers has led to invitations to perform at several Feminist Theory and Music conferences, the American Music/ American Women symposium in Boulder, Colorado, the Athena Festival in Murray, Kentucky, as well as at six of the International Festivals of Women Composers held at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. She has presented lecture-recitals for MTNA conferences as well. She has been a soloist with orchestras in Connecticut, New Jersey, Massachusetts, as well as featured artist with the Butler (PA), Youngstown and Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestras. Dr. Solomon has also performed at the Phillips Collection, the National Museum of Women in the Arts, and the French Embassy in Washington, D.C., Wigmore Hall in London, the Lincoln Center Library in New York City, and the Mozarteum in Salzburg, Austria. She has been a guest artist at colleges and universities in Pennsylvania, California, New York, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Florida, Minnesota, and Maine. Dr. Solomon's numerous awards include winner of the Pittsburgh Concert Society auditions, winner of the French Embassy award from the French Piano Institute, a fellowship to the Berkshire Music Center at Tanglewood, semi-finalist in the University of Maryland International competition, and finalist in "Search for a Star" sponsored by the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra and Marvin Hamlisch.
Her four compact discs- piano music of Nikolai Lopatnikoff (Laurel), Character Sketches and Sunbursts (Leonarda), and Badinage: Piano Music of Mana-Zucca (Albany) have received critical acclaim. Dr. Solomon received her early training as a scholarship student at the Juilliard School, where she studied with the late Edgar Roberts and Mme. Rosina Lhevinne. She received a B.A. degree magna cum laude from Yale College, where she studied with the late Ward Davenny and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa, an M.M. from the Yale School of Music, where she studied with Claude Frank, and a D.M.A. from Boston University School for the Arts, where she studied with the late Leonard Shure.