Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Teachers Forum showstoppers..duets, trios and quartets

I was wondering if you had ideas for great showstopper duets, trios or quartets?

One of my favorites is Balloon Pop Polka....
I wrap 4 boxes in music, insert sticks with balloons..I use black because the white and black in the concert hall that I use is very classy. I place 2 boxes on each piano..because there are 2 pianos..and this is a quartet....these are the centerpieces for the recital..and the finale is the balloon pop polka.
I never let the students tell other students what the ensemble pieces are. The surprises are something to look forward to and are quite fun!!!
I would love other ideas!!!

So have I got this right? The kids play their polka (2 to each piano) and at the end (or at other times during the piece) they pop the balloons? Cute! Hopefully no Grandmas in the audience with weak hearts...
Oh, and welcome

Well, for your more advanced students, take a look at the Carmen Suite and the Hungarian Rhapsody, both published by FJH.

Just sight-read "Ostinato Barbara" by Vandall at convention....wow! It's definitely intermediate level and published by Alfred.

My own three boys take piano, and because they are triplets, they do two trios each year for the Federation. In year one their teacher arranged a great sounding version of "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" for them, and it was a big hit when played by three beginner boys. She has self-published it, and I can PM the puchase information to you if you want it.

Last year (3rd year of piano)they played a great trio called "Three's a Crowd Rag" where toward the end of the rag, the middle player started playing up the piano and pushed the upper player off the bench. The upper player dusted himself off and squeezed between his brothers to play the last few notes at the end. It was a big hit and lots of fun for them to practice.

I don't know how much longer they'll do trios. They're getting a little big for three to a bench, and there are fewer and fewer choices each year. I may have to join in and do quartets with them. I'd love to hear of more fun trios (and quartets) that you all have heard so I can recommend them to their teacher.

One more that I think is a showstopper--my teacher and I played a duet called CS Theme and Variations. It is a takeoff on one of the Liszt Hungarian Rhapsodies done with the Chopsticks tune as the theme, and it was loads of fun for everyone. I'd say it is early high school, but I'm a poor judge of level.

Nancy

FJH has a relatively new series called "In Recital Duets", levels 1-6. It's edited by Helen Marlais and features various composers like Melody Bober, David Karp, Kevin Olson, Timothy Brown, Edwin McLean. Some are arrangements of traditional songs, others are original compositions. VERY nice; good recital quality songs.

Melody Bober also has some impressive sounding duets for late intermediate/advanced students.

D3 - I think Kevin Olsen is repsonsible for the two I mentioned above. Thanks for the memory jogger.

Actually I require all of my students to perform 2 lit pieces and at least one ensemble piece at the recitals! My home students are homeschooled and are very good at accomplishing whatever I ask....!! WITH POLISH!!!! My studio students don't have as much time to devote to practicing their lessons! We only have one piano at the studio and therefore only duets.
This year..Stars and Stripes trio was fantastic...and performed by a 15 year old boy, 14 year old girl and 16 year old girl. I believe it was mod difficult. They learned and polished it in just 2 weeks....and I am certain that I could have given a more difficult piece....but with the 16 year old playing Claire de Lune and the Entertainer...memorized...I didn't want to push too hard! The same 3 played Balloon Pop Polka because their brother is not as far along...and we wanted a family ensemble. They didn't mind..It was a huge hit!
That is just one family....I have other families doing along the same idea. The esembles are family oriented and are kept secret from the other students until performance.

I am looking for moderately difficult CHRISTMAS TRIO music. I cannot find any yet!! I am wanting to prepare them now for 20 minutes of prelude before a Christmas program. This is a huge event!

Thank you for the ideas thus far! Any more...I would really like too!!!

One duet book that is quite entertaining is Melody Bober's "Hats Off to You", for around level 2 students. This fun book has 6 songs, each representing a different hat; Secret Agent, Sombrero, Carnival Clown, Pirate, Baseball, and Cowboy song. The kids each have a paper bag sitting next to them at the piano and then pull out the appropriate hat for each song. The audience always loves it and so do the kids. It's fun to play the pieces on a digital piano (such as a clavinova) and use the various instrument sounds (pizzicato strings for Secret Agent, guitar for Sombrero, honky-tonk piano for Cowboy, musicbox for Clown, accordian for Pirate).

I teach music at a high school (but I'm not a piano teacher in a traditional sense), and I was lucky to have four girls in the same grade who played piano. I put them all in a quartet on two pianos and I arranged some popular classics for them to play at our school concerts. Here's what I've arranged:

- Sabre Dance
- Farandole from Bizet's L'Arlesienne Suite No. 2
- Hornpipe from Handel's Water Music
- Nutcracker Suite (mvts. 2a-2e)
- Barber of Seville Overture
- Stars and Stripes Forever

I also have did an arrangement of "Dance of the Hours", but it turned out to be too hard for them, so it was never performed.

Unfortunately, all four of them just graduated last month. I miss them already.


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