Piano 4-hand works by Canadian composer Christine Donkin

by Scott

During our weekly home live-stream concert series in spring-summer 2020, I spent a lot of time searching for 4-hand music to add to our programs. One of these research methods was browsing through a large booked titled “Piano Duet Repertoire: Music Written for One Piano, Four Hands”, and writing down the names of pieces that looked interesting. The Canadian composer Christine Donkin’s name was among the composers represented in the book and the two listed works had very evocative titles: “Sea of Tranquility” and “Bay of Rainbows”. I contacted Christine through her website to ask if she had these scores available, and she told us that they weren’t published yet but graciously sent us the scores anyway. We performed the Bay of Rainbows last year for the West Vancouver Arts Council’s concert series, and just last week, we performed Sea of Tranquility at the beautiful Silk Purse Arts Centre (with the ocean visible right behind the piano!).

Both works have a mysterious and otherworldly quality, and they are very direct and accessible in their musical language. We are thankful to Christine for sharing her music with us, and hope that she will write more 4-hand music in the future!