Aebersold & Neiweem

Described as “consummate practitioners of pianism” (The Washington Post) Claire Aebersold and Ralph Neiweem enjoy an international career as performers of music for both piano duet and two keyboards. Celebrating over four decades before the public, the duo has been heard on RAI-TV Italy, PBS television, and on WFMT Radio in Chicago, where they performed an unprecedented series of forty live broadcast concerts covering virtually the complete four-hand repertoire of the 19th and 20th centuries. Aebersold and Neiweem have appeared with orchestras internationally, including the Chicago Philharmonic and the Vienna Tonkünstler. They have been heard in recital in many cities throughout the USA and Europe, including Chicago, New York, Detroit, Washington, D.C., Santa Fe, Vienna, Rome, Florence and a residency in Odessa, Ukraine, and at the Gina Bachauer Festival in Salt Lake City, Utah. Performances in New York include a 25th anniversary celebration concert at Merkin Hall.

The duo has commissioned significant new works for the piano duo, including Joseph Turrin’s “Symmetries” for Two Pianos; “Great Movements” Sonata for piano, four hands by Patrick Byers; and “Cries and Whispers” by Robert Chumbley. Aebersold and Neiweem’s many CDs on the Summit label include a complete traversal of Schubert’s four-hand music, praised by Gramophone Magazine as “utterly charming...warmly recommended.”

In 2020 Aebersold and Neiweem were awarded the 1st Josef and Rosina Lhevinne Legacy prize for their achievements both in Piano Duo performance and teaching. They were also the first recipients of the Colburn award for excellence in teaching at the Music Institute of Chicago.

Claire Aebersold is a native of Oak Ridge, Tennessee and is a graduate of the New England Conservatory. Ralph Neiweem hails from Evanston, Illinois and is a graduate of the Juilliard School. Their joint teachers include Theodore Lettvin, Irwin Freundlich, Orazio Frugoni, and John Browning. Both completed graduate studies at Northwestern University. They are currently Artists-in-Residence at the Music Institute of Chicago, where they are directors of the annual Chicago Duo Piano Festival.