The Australian composer on the world premiere of his new work for husband-and-wife duo Pascal & Ami Roge.

How did the commission for your double piano concerto come about? Did you already know Pascal and Ami?

I had met them up at the Australian Festival of Chamber Music in Townsville, where Ami played my Spirit Song. Pascal also had a copy of my Violin Concerto, the recording with Lara St John and the Royal Philharmonic. He showed it to Mr Ashkenazy and they agreed it would be a good thing for me to write a double piano concerto for them with the Sydney Symphony.

 

It was a commission to celebrate their wedding – quite a special and unusual subject. How did you take that into account when you were composing the work?

There aren’t that many contemporary classical works that celebrate the marriage of the performers, but it’s a fundamental human rite so I thought that was quite interesting. The first movement is called The Two of Us, and the second movement is called Love Song. The first is very joyful, very celebratory and captures the feeling of being in love and of two people working together, still with their own opinions....