Today we’d like to introduce you to Julie Reimann and Ellyses Kuan.
Thanks for sharing your story with us Julie and Ellyses. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
We (Ellyses Kuan and Julie Reimann) together form Duo Amie, which is a Boston Massachusetts area based cello and piano duo that seeks to inspire and bring diverse people together through collaborative musical events and to support organizations serving and caring for our shared community. We initially met in 2013 while performing at a concert to benefit a medical charity organization. A close friendship and musical collaboration quickly developed between us as we are both passionate about music and the role we feel it plays in bringing people together and in creating beauty and hope in the world.
We also both know the hard work it takes to produce a phrase in just the way we would like and to hone our technique to as close to perfection as possible. Bonded by our shared backgrounds as high level conservatory-trained musicians who also earned advanced degrees in other fields, we formed Duo Amie in 2015 to share our love of music and performance with others, and to continue to support the mission of charities through organizing and performing at benefit concerts, which is a key element and goal of Duo Amie.
Since our inception in 2015, we have participated in benefit concerts for a number of different organizations, including Cradles to Crayons, Rosie’s Place, the Vietnam Vascular Anomalies Center, Lyra Music Festival Scholarship Fund, and Newton Montessori School. We also enjoy teaching and fostering young talent, including giving open rehearsals and coaching. Our repertoire is diverse and both of us delight in exploring both classical, contemporary, and popular music forms.
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Creating and rehearsing a challenging program can be difficult; however, we find the trading of ideas during rehearsal exciting and we somehow manage to do this in a positive and balanced way. The fact that we both enjoy each other’s company and that we have many similar interests (both in music in life in general) also helps! Probably the most difficult aspect of what we do is to maintain balance in our lives, as in addition to being a cellist, Julie is also a practicing physician, and Ellyses is the director of EKS Music School in Quincy, in addition to being a pianist, and both of us are mothers.
Since we are a small organization, we have to do most of the planning, promoting and organizing ourselves, in addition to rehearsing for and performing in the concerts. It helps that we both know the strain the other is under and we try to be as efficient as possible in our rehearsals and also in planning our concerts. We have worked hard to enlist the help of sponsors also interested in helping with our mission, and have been blessed with the support of several local businesses along the way.
Please tell us about Duo Amie.
Duo Amie seeks to inspire and bring diverse people together through collaborative musical events and to support organizations serving and caring for our shared community. We provide benefit concerts for other nonprofit organizations and also participate in other small ensemble performances to share the beauty of music and enrich the community.
We dedicate our time and energy to bringing music to those who may be new to chamber music performances and cello and piano repertoire, and we also particularly delight in creating concerts around specific themes. We also collaborate with others to provide access to many of these live events on our YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC357Hx4mAGd4wr52SfPEBsA. We are also available to provide music for special events https://www.duoamie.org/contact-1/.
Do you look back particularly fondly on any memories from childhood?
We are both first generation musicians in our families, in the sense that neither of us comes from traditional musical backgrounds and neither of us had parents who were professional musicians.
Cellist Julie Reimann remembers waiting impatiently for her turn to play the small cello her parents had gotten. Her brother got to play it first as he was a year older; however when she entered third grade she finally got to play too, and she can still recall the feel of the strings under her fingers as she pressed them down and drew her bow over them for the first time, in the living room of her childhood home.
When pianist Ellyses Kuan was 3, her parents bought her a toy grand piano (about 30 keys long). She remembers itching to come home from school to play, and her Mother barely got her out of her school clothes and into her play attire, before she was at the piano playing, impressing her Mother by being able to pick out a tune from memory that she had learned to sing at school.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.duoamie.org/
- Phone: 206-601-6591
- Email: info@duoamie.org
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/duoamie2015/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/duoamie/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/duoamie
- Yelp: Duo Amie
- Other: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC357Hx4mAGd4wr52SfPEBsA
Image Credit:
Cary Chu, Elena Kuzmina, Sharon Peng, Catharine Walsh, William Chan
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