11 VANESSA WAGNER & WILHEM LATCHOUMIA How has your duo evolved since your first album, ‘This is America!’, recorded four years ago? Vanessa Wagner: We’ve been playing together for ten years now, and our rapport has gone from strength to strength. After Varèse’s Amériques, which led to our first meeting, it was Thierry Escaich’s Concerto for two pianos that convinced us we should continue our collaboration. Our shared passion for Steve Reich’s Piano Phase gave rise to that first album of American music, and its success really galvanised us. It’s a programme that we perform regularly in concert, and thanks to which we’ve got to know each other so well that our playing and breathing are naturally synchronised. It’s an immense pleasure for us to play together in the concert hall: the duo is quite complementary in visual terms, since Wilhem is more extraverted in his movements than I am. Wilhem Latchoumia: It’s astonishing how musical affinities can sometimes spring up between artists without demanding even the slightest effort. That’s what happened with Vanessa, and it still delights me today.
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