(suspenseful drum roll music) - [Mark] In this edition of "Artistic Horizons:" (cymbal smashes) A dynamic piano duo.

- When you get into the space, and you hear the sonorities, and you see the other people who are sharing the experience, there's nothing like it.

(piano chord clangs) (audience applauding) (audience cheering) - [Mark] Forming connection through weaving.

- My work represents my multicultural identity as a Nepali and as an American.

How it is shaping me, and how I'm shaping it.

(lively upbeat music) - [Mark] Dedicating oneself to dance.

- I tell you, they're amazing students.

They're just hungry to learn.

They're just very giving to other people, and just great team players.

- It's all ahead on this edition of "Artistic Horizons."

(lively jazz music) Hello, I'm Mark Cernero, and this is "Artistic Horizons."

Kirk Whipple and Marilyn Morales are a husband and wife piano duo who have been playing together for over two decades.

Their talent as pianists and composers has brought them all over the world.

And in this segment, we'll travel to Florida to find out more about their latest projects.

(lively dramatic piano music) - [Kirk] I'm Kirk Whipple.

- [Marilyn] And I'm Marilyn Morales.

- We are a husband-and-wife team of composers, pianists, and educators.

And we make music, we teach, we write, we arrange.

And one of our mottoes is, "From Bach to rock and everything in between."

- We're always learning.

- Yes, we are.

- Yeah.

It's like the Cuban author said, "You're born learning, and you die learning."

And that's our lives, you know?

(lively dramatic piano music continues) - Well, we met each other in 1988 at a piano competition in Portland, Maine.

- I beat him.

- Yes, she did, but I- - Poor guy.

- I won the prize.

(Marilyn laughs) - And we got married in 1992.

We wrote a two-piano concerto.

And let me tell you, it was like we needed a marriage counselor before we got married, you know?

(laughs) Because I compose and he compose, and so we kind of like collide.

It's almost like having two people cooking at the same time.

- Yes.

We really like each other's spices.

- Yeah!

(laughs) Well, we had a really great referee, our composition teacher, Allaudin Mathieu.

And he was like, "Okay, you do this and you do that!"

And, you know, he set us straight.

- [Kirk] And that was for two pianos and a 50-piece orchestra on our wedding day.

- [Marilyn] And we got married in between the movements.

(gentle contemplative piano music) ♪ Always remember ♪ - These are pieces that have been percolating for quite a while.

I mean, her musical, "Always Remember," about the Cuban-American experience.

She had been working on that for over 25 years before we premiered it, one little piece at a time.

And after a while, she got the 24 songs, all the incidental music, and we were able to launch the world premiere production in 2022 in South Florida.

And similarly, my piece, "Macabrifesto," had been percolating, and we did a workshop of it in 2012 for one piano, six hands, and choir.

But I decided that the piece needed a little bit more of a fuller balance, and it gave me the opportunity for us to bring our friends across from Europe.

We call ourselves the United Nations Piano Quartet.

And so now, "Macabrifesto" is for two pianos, eight hands, bass and percussion, (lively eclectic music) and choir, and soloist.

(both laughing) - We don't do anything small, you know?

(chuckles) I don't know if you noticed, but everything we do is big, you know?

(laughs) I mean, even- - We have small pieces, too.

- Yeah.

No, we do.

One piano, four hands, or two-piano things, you know?

- And we've written a lot of pieces for two pianos, four hands that we play, and one piano, four hands.

(light piano music) With two pianos, four hands, you have one pianist on each piano.

We're in our space.

It's nice and easy.

We have all the room we need.

We don't have to worry about bumping into each other.

Now, conversely, on one piano, four hands; one thing, it's a lot easier to find just one piano in a venue.

Also, there's an added challenge, and it's more immediate because you're both right there.

But there's a challenge because there's an intermediate step that we call traffic.

Before you can interpret the piece, you go, "Oh, there's your hand.

Oh, I gotta get around."

- Have you seen the size of those hands?

I mean, they're huge.

You took my pinky one time.

We missed the last chord.

The last chord was like "Eee!"

you know?

- So traffic.

- Yeah, traffic.

- That's an issue with one piano, four hands.

And the sound is different, of course.

With one piano, four hands, it's more intimate, you could say, because you have the...

I said just the one piano, but one piano.

With two pianos, you have an expanded range of sonorities.

It becomes more symphonic, perhaps.

- And then, yeah, the two pianos, eight hands, is even harder because now you have to only work the traffic, each one of us in each piano, but also the traffic and also- - The ensemble.

- The ensemble.

It's so hard, yeah.

And we were very, very lucky.

I mean, we really hit it on together great with Mark and you know.

- And we should say, too, that this setting of the United Nations Piano Quartet, there's three founding members: Marilyn and I, and Mark Sole-Leris.

Our other founding member, Frederic Chauvel, he's had to bow out for health reasons, but we're thrilled that Soraya Zlitni is stepping in for him.

(lively piano music) - So when Frederic said, "I can't come, Mark," I said, "Oh, how am I gonna manage this?"

Needs somebody who has high-class piano playing, classical piano playing, but who could also play in different styles because Kirk Whipple's writing is quite complex, especially rhythmically and also harmonically.

And I thought Soraya could do the job, and she's definitely doing a very good job.

- Thanks.

So my name is Soraya, and I'm privileged to play "Macabrifesto" of Kirk Whipple and honored to replace Frederic Chauvel.

(choir vocalizing) (lively upbeat piano music) - The United Nations Piano Quartet is here for the world premiere of "Macabrifesto."

And, in fact, we have an international cultural exchange program between Miami-Dade County and France, which helped us to raise the funds to bring them out here.

And next year, we're going across to do the same piece with French vocalists and instrumentalists.

So, very, very exciting for us that we can do something that's international.

♪ Goodbye ♪ ♪ Doesn't seem like enough by far ♪ - I mean, it's like... And do you wanna talk about "Always Remember" first and then "Macabrifesto?"

- Sure, sure, sure.

- You know, it's like I love musicals.

Really love musicals.

But I was trying to do something that could stand the of times, like "West Side Story" or "Sound of Music."

You know, something that really, really was strong and not just repetitive.

So I wrote...

I have a salsa piece.

I have a classical piece, actually, that I used.

It's a Chopin "Etude," and then I wrote a trio on top of it.

I kept the Chopin "Etude" exactly the same, but I did the three on top.

I have a mambo.

I have a rumba.

So, I mean- - All very accessible to audiences.

- Yeah.

- And it's not something that you're trying to get past the audience.

- And at the same time, it's challenging for the musicians.

So it's not something that anyone can... Well, they could sing it, but they have to practice, you know?

So I made it so.

And it's tonal.

I mean, there's nothing crazy, you know, wild.

- And, conversely, my piece, "Macabrifesto:" eight pieces.

It's a smaller set.

"Always Remember" was a three-hour production, including the intermission, and "Macabrifesto" is about a 50-minute set of eight pieces I set to American and British poems.

And so it's a little bit of a different process.

She wrote all the lyrics, the story, and everything for "Always Remember," and I helped her by orchestrating.

Whereas with "Macabrifesto," the words were written for me by the greatest poets in history.

♪ Knocking at my chamber door ♪ - [Kirk] And then I scored it for the choir and two pianos, percussion, and bass.

♪ Forevermore ♪ - It's even hard to play just along with our metronome.

It's hard.

So when our partner, it's harder.

And with the other duo?

(mimics explosion) Complicated just to match the- - Exponential; it gets more and more difficult.

(frenetic piano music) With Marilyn being a passionate and romantic, expressive pianist.

And Kirk is the wild...

I don't know.

He's just quite a phenomenon, is Kirk Whipple.

And he's the rhythmical, energetic guy.

So it's a really subtle mix of different kinds.

And Soraya, in a way, has some qualities, also, of Fred, because she has a very good rhythmical sense.

So that's part of why it works well.

And I'm maybe the more expressive kind of guy.

You know, when it's also a story of friendship and of love between people.

And this is what we did together today.

(climatic frenetic music) Whoo!

- There's immediacy to being in live performance that you cannot get from a screen; you can't get from an iPhone.

When you get into the space and you hear the sonorities and see the other people who are sharing the experience, there's nothing like it.

- [Marilyn] Yeah.

- [Kirk] Really, what it is for us, the real excitement is being there in the flesh with real instruments and people.

- Yeah, I actually had a student one time that the mother kept asking.

I said, "When was the last time you took her to a piano recital?"

And so then she took her, and the girl was practicing, practicing, practicing.

So she comes in the next week, and she says, "I don't know how to make her stop."

And I said, "That's not my problem."

(laughs) (piano chord clangs) (audience applauding) (audience cheering) (lively jazz music) - And now for the artist quote of the week.

Ohio-based artist Anita Maharjan has been creating art in the United States for over a decade.

Through her woven installations, she connects to her Nepali culture and comments on contemporary materiality.

Take a look.

(bright lively music) - I was still painting during my undergrad and at the time, one of my professor challenged me, like, "What can you bring something new in the art world?"

I was taking fiber art as an elective and during one of the projects, I used the recycle grocery bags from my kitchen pantry and I started weaving like how it is done in my culture in Nepal.

Weaving really took me back home to my people, my community.

So in that sense, taking something familiar, a historically rich technique from my culture, and blending it with the material I find every day became a way for me to explore my art.

Recently, my work highlights the consumerism-based society in Western culture and its ecological impact.

I grew up in an agricultural society; collecting garbage is not a thing in our culture, or we produce very few non-degradable waste.

Straw, that is the agricultural waste after harvesting the rice, we use that to make mat.

This kind of weaving, it is very specific to my ethnic background, which is Nawari.

(bright contemplative music) Weaving is done primarily by uneducated, home-staying women.

It's a very communal activity where they all chit-chat and talk and then weave all day.

It doesn't require, like, loom or any kind of support; the human body itself has support the weaving.

It is passed from generation to generation.

And my mom taught me this.

My mom used to work all day 'cause she's a single mom, and she worked in a brick factory, and then she would come home, and after dinner, this was another job that she would do to make extra income.

And, you know, I grew up seeing her weave and put that intense labor to feed our belly.

And so in that sense, it's very personal to me.

And being able to connect that to memory living seven seas across from where I come from, it's very powerful to me.

(bags rustling) (gentle thoughtful music) Where I live here in Western culture, almost everything come in a plastic package.

The plastic bags in my pantry represent how many trips I've made to the stores.

We are very good at purchasing and generating the waste.

(birds cawing) It begins with the plastic bags again and then hotel bedsheets.

And I also use the tissue paper that people use for, like, a baby shower and some other stuff.

I'm like, "Give me all of that.

I can use them."

And I also have family and friends who donate the bags to me.

So again, it start all with collecting the material first.

(light thoughtful music) The plastic bag I cut into strips to make it long, which is also a very intense labor of work.

And then I twist the strips almost like a parallel strand to make, like, a one rope knot.

As I have the quantity and the length I want, I start weaving with the plastic.

I use my legs to kind of hold it, and as it grows, I sit on it and then move from right to left to left to right.

First, I was using it as a canvas to paint on it, which progressed slowly to more twisted, different forms and different shapes.

And so it shifted from two-dimensional to a more three-dimensional work.

And now my work comes in different shape and size, and they're more interactive installation pieces.

And even those bags comes in a different shape.

Different shape in a sense, like, it represents different brand from high-end brand to discounted stores.

And, you know, that resembles the informal hierarchy of class and the value we put in objects and ourselves.

(light thoughtful music continues) My work represents my multicultural identity as a Nepali and as an American, how it is shaping me, and how I'm shaping it.

I see myself woven together into both culture.

And in that sense, my work is an homage to people, especially women from my culture, to represent the art, craft, and labor of those underprivileged women.

(lively jazz music) - [Mark] Now here's a look at this month's fun fact.

Denise Wall's Dance Energy is an award-winning studio in Virginia that has turned out a series of extraordinary students excelling in the field of dance.

Two of those students are John Chappell and Caden Hunter, who were accepted into the prestigious Juilliard School for Dance.

Here's the story.

(light mid-tempo music) - I did apply to a couple of other dance colleges that I was interested in, but Juilliard was definitely the main one.

But it was obviously more kind of a dream because of the acceptance rate and the reality of getting in.

- There's no way they're gonna pick two boys from the same studio.

- Juilliard's dance program is tough to get into.

I always try to tell kids that cannot be the only one that you wanna audition for because, throughout the whole world, they take 12 girls and 12 guys.

So the odds of you getting in is, like, slim to none.

- The hardest part was waiting.

That was the hardest part.

I was in the car.

I look at my phone, and it says it's from New York, and I don't usually answer, like, random calls or whatever, but I was like, "Like, is this for real?"

So I answer it, and it's the dean of dance, and I screamed immediately.

They probably thought I was crazy.

They were laughing at me the whole time.

- I knew that a call could be coming.

I answered it and obviously, I was so excited.

They were just laughing 'cause we don't even know how to react, it's so shocking.

So I actually started dance at what most would consider too late.

I was, like, 13.

I started out in gymnastics, and I've always loved to dance.

I'm a pretty shy person, so I was a little iffy about it, but I ended up loving it.

I came here 'cause I knew that Denise's training was advanced, and could get me, if I wanna do this for a living, where I need to be.

- When I was like three, I was watching "So You Think You Can Dance," obviously this little kid jumping around.

So then I forced my mother to put me in dance classes.

I've always looked up to Denise Wall's Dance Energy, like, forever.

I've come to a few of the intensives.

So Denise knew who I was.

Like, she knew my face, she knew how I danced, so she'd seen me before.

We'd talked to her, and she decided that she was gonna let me in company, and I was so excited.

Now we are where we are.

(light uplifting music) - I tell you, they're amazing students.

They're just hungry to learn.

They're just very giving to other people and just great team players.

What they bring into the space is very positive.

John is very quiet, and it took him a while really to open up.

John has amazing facility.

He's got all this natural flexibility.

John had a lot of ballet; he didn't have a lot of movement quality, but he had trouble really getting grounded into the floor 'cause he's so tall and moving out from himself.

John trusted me right from the get-go.

We had a good connection.

- It was kind of intimidating coming in here for the first time 'cause this little studio in Virginia Beach is, like, nationally ranked, and pretty much every dancer all over the world knows about her.

So it was intimidating for sure, but she's not scary at all.

She's one of the most friendly people I've met.

Denise prepares us for everything.

We're always learning new things every day about how we should be and act as dancers.

She definitely keeps us stern and disciplined.

We're all good kids because of her.

It's a lot of hard work, and it's definitely hard sometimes, but at the end of the day, it's what we all love doing, and our hard work definitely pays off.

- Caden is amazing in class.

He will do well because he's engaged.

Right when you start teaching it, he's so connected to the teacher, and he's got great musicality, and he just gives 200%.

(gentle thoughtful music) - We're literally a huge family.

It's been a good experience, really good.

It's helped me, it's matured me, and I think it's prepared me.

That's the big point.

It's prepared me for the future, and it's prepared me to move to the city.

It's prepared me to be a professional dancer.

It's 90% mental and 10% physical, which I didn't really comprehend at first.

But now since I've grown into my body and my form and my physique, I'm figuring out that being a smart dancer is better than being a physical dancer.

- I've been teaching for over 40 years.

We try to train these kids mentally all the way.

I don't sugarcoat it for them; I wanna be honest with them, but I do it in a nurturing way because it is very mental.

If you prepare them that way mentally, even if they don't do this for a living, we teach so much more than dance.

You've gotta be a leader.

You can't be the one that's causing drama.

You gotta get along with people.

You gotta be able to motivate people, and they make it in the corporate world because they know how to lead people.

- The whole experience is really unbelievable.

Like, I don't even think it's really set in.

To go from a little Southern town to New York City is definitely a lot to think about, and there's a lot that I don't know, but all I know is that I'm really excited and happy about the whole thing.

- I think being here was a big, big factor, getting me to be able to do my dream.

I'm so excited, and I'm excited to learn.

That's what I'm most excited, I'm excited to learn from the crazy faculty that's at Juilliard.

I'm nervous 'cause there's a lot that could happen, but I'm more excited than nervous.

- When they leave the nest, it's heartbreaking.

Dance teachers go through this every year; every time they leave, it's like my heart breaks.

(lively jazz music) - And now here's a look at a few notable dates in art history.

And that wraps it up for this edition of "Artistic Horizons."

For more arts and culture, visit WPBSTV.org.

Until next time, I'm Mark Cernero.

Thanks for watching.

(lively jazz music continues) (bright gentle music)