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The Allison Duo

The Allison Duo

If you are interested in more information, please contact us at: allisonduo[at]gmail[dot]com.
Thank you for visiting our website!


Our latest concert was a lot of fun! Stay tuned for upcoming performances.




Upcoming Performances:

We are playing on Friday, July 21, 2023 from 12:00-1:00 pm
in the atrium of Health Hospital in Fort Myers. There will be a beautiful mix of classical and jazz!


Past News: 

August 18, 2022
“Nuit d’Étoiles”
an evening of French saxophone and piano music
at the Tribby Center at Shell Point


"Histoires"
a concert of saxophone and piano music with spoken stories and poems
This family-friendly concert interweaves storytelling with musical performance. It features excerpts from Camille Saint-Saens's Carnival of the Animals, Astor Piazzola's Histoire du Tango, Jacques Ibert's Histoires, and Pierre Max Dubois's  The Toirtoise and the Hare. The stories range from Ogden Nash's extraordinary wit to new fairy tales to Aesop's fables, and also includes some material written specifically for this event!
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Shawn and Abbey had an amazing time playing at a wedding in Maine. The music choices for the ceremony were unique and fit the bride and groom perfectly. It was a lot of fun to work with the couple and to learn the pieces! We played Stevie Wonder and the Beach Boys as processional pieces, Lucinda Williams during the ceremony, and Piazzolla for the processional. It was such a fun wedding!
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Shawn and Abbey had a great time playing their duo concert, Shouts and Elegies.



Bios:
Formed in 2003, The Allison Duo is dedicated to performing music that features saxophone and piano in equal roles, with repertoire ranging from classical transcriptions, to jazz, to klezmer, to the latest music for saxophone and piano. While we are at home in a concert setting, we also have a great deal of experience performing at a variety of functions, and are available to book for performances in Sanibel and the greater Fort Myers region.


Shawn Allison holds degrees in saxophone performance and composition from St. Olaf College (B.M.) and Ithaca College (M.M.), and is currently pursuing a PhD in composition from the University of Chicago. As a saxophonist, he has performed with The Tanglewood Festival of Contemporary Music, Ensemble X (Ithaca), the Maverick Ensemble (Chicago), and the University of Chicago New Music Ensemble. He played with the New Heritage Saxophone Quartet when the ensemble was selected as a semifinalist in the Fischoff International Chamber Music competition and was invited to perform at the World Saxophone Congress. Shawn is the bass section leader for the Sanibel Congregational UCC Church Choir and occasionally plays saxophone and sings as special music for services.

As a composer, he has worked with ensembles including the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, Contempo, eighth blackbird, ICE (International Contemporary Ensemble), the New Fromm Players, Spektral Quartet, and the Cadillac Moon Ensemble. He has won awards and fellowships for his compositions from The American Academy of Arts and Letters, the American Composers Forum, and New Music USA; and his music has been selected for performance at the Tanglewood, Wellesley, Bowdoin, SICPP, and Fast Forward Austin festivals.


Abbey Allison holds a double degree in piano performance and string education from Ithaca College.  Since then, she has been a professional accompanist/collaborator in the Ithaca and Chicago areas, working with both student and professional instrumentalists and vocalists, ranging from national competition winners to contemporary music specialists to live Public Radio broadcasts. Abbey is the rehearsal pianist for the Symphonic Chorale in Fort Myers and plays Friday evening services for Temple Bay Yam on Sanibel. She has performed as the harpsichordist with the FGCU Opera Workshop performances of Purcell's Dido and Aeneas and with the Symphonic Chorale's Sing Out! Baroque concert, and as the pianist/coach for Gulfshore Opera's production of Humperdinck's Hansel and Gretel.

Shawn is originally from Newport News, Virginia, and Abbey grew up in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, and Boothbay Harbor, Maine. Most recently, they’ve lived in Chicago and Maine, and now reside on Sanibel.
 


Shawn and Abbey have played together for more than 10 years and have provided beautiful music for weddings, parties/receptions, bar/bat mitzvahs, dinners, and other events.

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