The acclaimed classical music duo of Alyona Aksyonova and James Waldo will be featured at 7:30 p.m. Monday, March 24, in the Coulter Building at Western Carolina University.

The concert is a benefit for the United Christian Ministries of Jackson County and the WCU Honors College’s student study abroad fund. A reception will be held following the evening concert.

Aksyonova, a pianist from Russia, and Waldo, an American cellist, met and began playing together while attending graduate studies at Mannes College in New York City. Based in Manhattan, the duo is beginning its second season of professional engagements this spring, including performances at the Piccolo Spoleto Festival in Charleston, the Highlands-Cashiers Chamber Music Festival, and appearances in New York, Connecticut and Rhode Island.

The program for the concert will include works by Ludwig van Beethoven, Ayumi Okada, Alexander Scriabin, Chandler Carter and Sergei Rachmaninoff. Funding for the A.W. Duo’s appearance at WCU is being provided by Dr. Mark Whitehead and his wife, Kathy Whitehead, both members of the Honors College’s Advisory Board from Highlands.

Prior to the March 24 performance, Aksyonova and Waldo will present a workshop focusing on the business aspects of their artistic lives at 4 p.m. in the Catamount Room of WCU’s A.K. Hinds University Center. The workshop is open to the public.

Tickets are $5 for students and $15 for all others.

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