Belgrade, Serbia-based composer-pianists Sonja Lončar and Andrija Pavlović are the musical minds behind LP Duo. Eager to break new ground, Sonja and Andrija have forged their own original combination of electronics and acoustic pianism – melding the synthesized and the organic – with a little help from their friends over at the quantum physics lab.
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In 2004 Lončar and Pavlović began their musical life together performing traditional classical piano duets. A natural step for the curious keyboardists, the pair soon began experimenting with analogue and digital synthesis. This curiosity would develop further into a full-blown musical-scientific research venture – a collaboration between LP Duo and a team of quantum physics researchers dubbed the Quantum Music project.
LP Duo worked with engineers Dragan Novkovic and Darko Lazovic to develop the Hybrid Piano. By applying a mechanical controller to each of an acoustic grand piano’s 88 keys, LP Duo could now use the acoustic instrument to control any array of synthesisers, video, or lighting arrays. This new instrument would form the basis of the duo’s 2019 album Duality, the duo’s first album of original music composed for the Hybrid Piano.
Throughout LP Duo’s creative journey the concept of duality has remained prevalent: “This is exactly what ‘duality’ means to us – something that is neither black nor white, digital nor acoustic, male nor female”.
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The result is a spectacular, colourful journey through futuristic sound worlds. The Hybrid Piano’s application of mechanical controls to electronic sounds is a creative masterstroke – rarely are acoustic instruments so well integrated into synthesised environments as they are on Duality. This feat of musical engineering – in addition to the duo’s prodigious ability as performers – sets LP duo apart from their “neo-classical’” contemporaries.
LP Duo’s genre-bending album Duality features six of the duo’s original compositions. The album was performed on two Hybrid Pianos and recorded at Kolarac Great Hall in Belgrade, Serbia.
LP Duo – Duality is out now to stream
Follow LP Duo at lpduo.com