Classical Review: Yu&I Duo debuts in STL at the Hi-Pointe Theatre

First-time team-up between STL Classical Guitar & Cinema St. Louis

This past Saturday (3/8/25), St. Louis Classical Guitar presented its most recent 2024-2025 season concert in a novel venue for them, the Hi-Pointe Theatre, now owned and managed by Cinema St. Louis. This joint presentation by the two organizations featured the LA-based Yu&I Duo, South Korean violinist YuEun Gemma Kim and German guitarist Ines Thomé, who met at USC as music school classmates. Fittingly, for the space, the program mixed ‘straight classical’ selections with works tied to specific movies. This concert had a multi-media element, with a series of images related to the concert’s selections in varying degrees. In his audience welcome opening, STL Classical Guitar executive director Brian Vaccaro acknowledged that this was a new experiment for the organization, and asked for forbearance from the audience. (Disclosure: I’ve volunteered for Cinema St. Louis in the past.)

The concert began with the Centone di Sonate in A minor, op. 64, no. 1, of Niccolò Paganini (1782-1840), one of the program’s two works without a movie connection. The term ‘Centone’ was a new term to me; an on-line search implies a kind of medley or potpourri nature to such a work. In any case, this made for a good-natured concert opener, with the violin having the main share of the melodic line, no surprise since Paganini was one of the greatest violinists ever, although the guitar took the melodic lead briefly in the work’s second movement. In her remarks after the Paganini, Ms. Kim mentioned that few original works exist for violin and guitar, so this concert would mainly consist of transcriptions.

Next was the first of the movie music choices, three tracks by Ennio Morricone (1928-2020) from the 1991 film Cinema Paradiso, “Nuovo Cinema Paradiso” (‘New Cinema Paradiso’), “Prima Gioventu” (‘First Youth’), and ‘Tema d’Amore’ (‘Love Theme’), the last this film score’s big number. The duo had a few brief shaky moments in this set, but quickly overcame them. They then traipsed musically to Argentina for two movements of L’Histoire du Tango by Astor Piazzolla (1921-1992), “Bordel 1900” and “Nightclub 1960”. Originally composed for flute and guitar, this composition works well in other arrangements, such as violin and guitar. Piazzolla reined in his characteristic nuevo tango rhythmic clichés in ‘Bordel 1900’, but let them flower more in ‘Nightclub 1960’. Ms. Kim drolly described the regular sul ponticello effects that Piazzolla uses as “duck sounds”.

It was back to the movies for the next selection, the classic Édith Piaf chanson “La vie en rose”. BTW, the lyrics are hers, but the music is by Louis Guglielmi (1916-1991), a.k.a. “Louiguy” (FYI, pronounce ‘guy’ in the French manner [‘ghee’] to get the subtle linguistic joke). The selection was also appropriate on personal grounds, as Ms. Kim’s husband is French. Closing the first half was an arrangement of the “Spanish Dance No. 1” from the opera La vida breve by Manuel de Falla (1876-1946). As Ms. Thome rightly said, it’s ‘tough’ to give a guitar recital without Spanish music, which was ironic here because this was the concert’s only Spanish selection, besides being the program’s other non-movie tied work.

The concert’s most curious offering followed after intermission, an arrangement of the C-sharp minor Nocturne (op. posth.) by Frédéric Chopin (1810-1849), tied to the film The Pianist. I say “most curious” because Chopin composed basically all his works for, or featuring, the piano. IMVHO, arranging a Chopin solo piano work for another instrument just feels inherently wrong. For all the duo’s skills, they couldn’t erase that feeling in my head, as the arrangement came close to over-sentimentalizing the music. The next selection, the ‘Winter’ concerto from Vivaldi’s Le quattro stagioni (The Four Seasons), stayed closer to its composer’s original plan, albeit with Ms. Thomé’s solo guitar as the ‘orchestra’ to the original violin part.

The next two selections returned to the movies, the song “Remember Me” by Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez from the 2017 Pixar film Coco, and the main theme from Schindler’s List by John Williams. Ms. Thomé told an amusing story of when she ran a video of Coco in her classroom early in her teaching career. Bad idea, because only a few minutes in, one kid started crying, and things devolved from there. FWIW, one motif in “Remember Me” sounded to me much like “Hab mir’s gelobt” from Richard Strauss’ Der Rosenkavalier. Similarly, the Schindler’s List theme is reminiscent of a passage in Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet (in the middle of the love theme), for anyone inclined to play the “spot the resemblance” game, classical music-style.

Before introducing the final selection, Piazzolla’s Libertango, Ms. Kim none-too-subtly quipped that they might play one more work if the audience applauded loudly enough, besides adding that more “duck sounds” were coming. Besides those, Ms. Kim showed some solid col legno bow work, and Ms. Thomé got to rap her guitar in the manner of percussion. The audience did show their appreciation, and got their encore, “Tico-Tico no fubá” by the Brazilian composer Zequinha de Abreu (1880-1935).

Given the Duo’s long-standing musical partnership (12+ years), it’s no surprise that their musicianship was solid throughout, those few very minor intonation bobbles aside. Their endearingly fractured English added to their charm. The Hi-Pointe Theatre’s acoustic worked quite well for the musicians, even factoring in discreet amplification for Ms. Thomé’s guitar (standard for classical guitar recitals). By contrast, Ms. Kim’s violin was unamplified, as the violin generally has more sonic carrying power on its own than an acoustic guitar.

It remains to address the concert’s “PowerPoint” aspect. Since this was a gallery of still pictures, obviously there was no sonic distraction from the Yu&I Duo’s music-making. In terms of selections, the choices seemed a mixed bag, going on the personal opinion that the less intrusive or noticeable the pictures, the better. With the Paganini and de Falla selections, simple historical paintings (Paganini) or pictures (de Falla) worked well, although in the Paganini, some contemporary shots of a violinist with long shaggy hair and who didn’t look much like the historical Paganini looked odd. The most jarring choices were from the 1981 Alan Alda film of The Four Seasons that went with the Vivaldi, where the pictures of a boat in a tropical island setting were not ‘wintry’ at all. For the Cinema Paradiso, Coco, and Schindler’s List works, the selected stills were generally appropriate, even if pictures from the last of the little girl in the pink-red coat tilted things toward slightly mawkishness (as in the film).

More logistically troublesome, if structurally unavoidable, was that the image projections on the full Hi-Pointe screen fell in part on the ladies, even with them spotlit to mitigate that. The duo performed on a slightly elevated stage, but the space’s inherent structure meant that one really couldn’t see the musicians in the same way as in a standard concert venue, like The Sheldon or the Touhill, or even in Salem United Methodist Church in Frontenac, STL Classical Guitar’s current main performing space. This visual aspect didn’t harm the sonic experience, of course. In any case, collaborations like this between different arts organizations are always most welcome, for the groups to reach outside their respective current audiences. The crowd numbered 100, and looked like a mix of STL Classical Guitar regulars with new faces.

Although this concert was the St. Louis debut for the Yu&I Duo, this was not their first Missouri appearance, as they performed in Hannibal, MO in February 2024 on a Midwest tour. If the Yu&I Duo ever returns to STL, which would be most welcome, Salem United Frontenac would suit them very well, with its bright interior to suit their friendly personalities.