Cooke brothers combine for Festival of Chichester concert

Festival of Chichester principal sponsor Edward Cooke, of Edward Cooke Family Law, combines with his brother Matthew to give a very special concert for this year’s Festival.

Called Piano and Organ Duets for a Summer’s Afternoon, it will be on July 19 at 15:00 at St Paul’s Church, Chichester where solicitor Edward is one of the organists.

They are promising a programme of duets to include works by Rossini, Bach, Johann Strauss II, Debussy, Dvorak and Mozart, with tea and cake served afterwards.

No tickets are required, but there will be a retiring collection for Chestnut Tree House Children’s Hospice.

Edward said: “This is the second time we've done this for the Festival of Chichester. We did a concert two years ago and that was at St Paul's as well. And it was such a success that we felt that we should reprise it. We did a mixed repertoire and we did some particularly interesting pieces composed for piano and organ. It's not often that they are played together. Piano and organ are quite contrasting, and composers don't often think of putting them together but I think they work really well. I think people would perhaps think that the organ would drown out the piano but the piano has its own very distinct sound and the piano can actually really carry through.”

Last time, they did a suite for organ and piano by Canadian composer Denis Bédard: “We thought how can we top that. We're doing some lovely music by Dvorak. We're doing some Johann Strauss and we're doing some real classics of piano duet music but also we also wanted to find something for piano and organ and I came across another set of brothers, the Scott brothers up in Yorkshire.”

The Scott Brothers Duo (Jonathan Scott and Tom Scott) are a UK classical keyboard duo who perform internationally in combinations of piano, organ and harmonium.

“There's quite a lot of what they do on YouTube and they do some fantastic arrangements of great classics. I thought we'd find something fun and I wanted something really jolly and we found their arrangements of the Overture to The Magic Flute by Mozart.

“We are just hoping for a really well attended concert as we had last time. We are hoping that people will have fun in a full church, and most importantly there is going to be tea and cake!”

Edward and Matthew certainly enjoy performing together: “Like most brothers we don't like to be compared! But I think actually we are quite different but what we have in common is music. In terms of personality I think Matthew brings the professionalism of being a day-to-day musician and a teacher and maybe, as a non-professional musician, I bring something from outside of that world, an enthusiasm and a thinking outside the box. I think that we have a good balance between us.”