$15 youth, $25 Senior/Student, $30 general admission
Tickets available through Eventbrite.
DUO SEMAPHORE pianists Rachael Hutchings and Hukum Singh Khalsa bring the four-hand repertoire to life with joy and playfulness. Grounded in classical training, the Denver-based duo reinvents the tradition of the piano duet afresh.
The duo embraces the scope of literature from J.S. Bach to living composers, often programming works by women and other underrepresented composers and collaborating with community artists. This program includes a variety of works from the Romantic and contemporary periods, featuring original art by video producer Erin Preston. Duo Semaphore believes there is great power and intimacy in people experiencing music, drama, comedy, and creativity together.
Artist Profiles
Colorado pianist and composer Rachael Hutchings’s recent performances feature both standard classical repertoire and her own compositions. Rachael's compositional style is at once expressive, approachable, and innovative. Her settings of poetry by Rilke for voice and piano have been featured on CPR’s “Colorado Spotlight,” performed with her husband, tenor Daniel Hutchings. Before arriving in Colorado in 2010, she was an active performer and music teacher in San Francisco. Rachael served as an instructor at the San Francisco Community Music Center and adjunct professor of piano at the University of San Francisco.
She appears as a guest artist, visiting lecturer, and collaborative pianist. Rachael and her duet partner Hukum Singh Khalsa are DUO SEMAPHORE, performing throughout the Denver area and beyond. She has served as an adjudicator and administrator for various student music programs and competitions, and she teaches piano and composition privately. Composition students from her private studio have gone on to top college composition programs. Rachael is on the faculty at the University of Denver’s Lamont School of Music, where she teaches piano repertoire.
She began studying piano in her hometown of Iowa City, Iowa and earned her B.M.A. in piano performance at the University of Michigan School of Music. She completed a Master of Music degree in composition and piano performance at the University of Denver's Lamont School of Music where she studied with Alice Rybak. In addition to music, Rachael is passionate about volunteering as a house manager at Sacred Heart House of Denver and as a math tutor at the Denver Women’s Correctional Facility.
Pianist Hukum Singh Khalsa, a Colorado native, received his formal education at the University of Colorado Boulder where he studied languages, early music, electronic music and earned a Bachelor of Music degree in piano performance. The majority of his musical education was forged as a working musician and in the rehearsal space of conductors: choral and orchestral (David Zinman, Duain Wolfe, Marin Alsop, Adam Flatt), instrumental and voice teachers, choreographers, and theatre directors.
Teachers Mr. Khalsa has studied with include Larry Graham, Miyoko Lotto, Robert Spillman, and Rami Bar-Niv. He has been privileged to work privately with former University of Denver Lamont School of Music faculty member, Alice Rybak.
Mr. Khalsa has held positions as accompanist for Central City Opera, accompanist for the Colorado Symphony Chorus, accompanist for the Colorado Children’s Chorale, and staff accompanist at Metropolitan State University. He has performed all over the United States and Italy. He has also served as an opera coach and collaborative pianist for the students and faculty at Lamont School of Music at the University of Denver, taught voice and piano at Arapahoe Community College, and has run a private piano teaching studio for over twenty years. Hukum often collaborates with the Chamber Music Society of Greater Denver.
Mr. Khalsa is a passionate educator, a teacher and practitioner of Kundalini Yoga/meditation and Sat Nam Rasayan (a healing modality).