FLORENCE – Shawn Leopard and John Paul will perform a duo in harpsichords, Wednesday, Oct. 27 at 8 p.m. in the Adele Kassab Recital Hall in the Hyman Fine Arts Center at Francis Marion University.  The performance is part of the 1999-2000 FMU Artist Series and the event is free and open to the public.

Among the delights of music to be performed, there is a wonderful series of pieces for two harpsichords played together.  Johann Sebastian Bach and several of his talented sons composed the centerpieces of this repertoire, which includes works from 17th- and 18th-century France, England and Italy.   The two are expected to perform creative new arrangements of popular and familiar tunes by Haydn, Boccerini, Albéniz and Scott Joplin.

Leopard and Paul travel with two harpsichords from the studio of Anden Houben.  One harpsichord is a copy of a 1691 French one, strung in steel and brasses, and the other is a "Lautenwerck" (lute-harpsichord) strung in gut.  Together they produce a rich and clear sound, doing equal justice to a Baroque Allegro, a Joplin rag or a Tango by Albéniz.

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