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Originally from Winnipeg, Ronald and Ruth Moir took their preliminary music education at the University of Manitoba, where principal piano coaches were William Aide, Alma Brock Smith and Leonard Isaacs. Upon completion of B.Mus studies, they were the recipient of grants from both the Canada Council and the Manitoba Arts Council for postgraduate studies in the UK with BBC recording artist Joan Davies. Davies had been performing the standard literature of the piano on her Canadian tours, had been a student of Egon Petri, the composer Medtner, and was also a respected pioneer of the early piano and performed regularly in the Hazelmere Early Music Festival as well as at the Colt Collection. The Moirs soon found themselves performing on instruments of the 18th century.
Upon returning to Canada they settled in Toronto and began concretizing as the Moir Fortepiano duo. Concerts were based primarily in southern Ontario but tours occasionally went out of the country and they appeared at the Boston Early Music Festival and in Augusta for the Southeastern Historical Keyboard Society. They conducted a series of concerts with an accompanying workshop across southwestern Ontario for music teaching associations. Similar concert/workshops and master classes have also been conducted in Winnipeg, Valley City State College ND and Cleveland, Ohio. Recently piano/fortepiano master classes have been given for Mount Royal College Conservatory in Calgary AB and for the RCM Alumnae Association in Vancouver.
Toronto, Montreal, Boston, White Plains NY, Augusta, San Francisco, Sacramento and Vancouver. The Moir duohave performed for concert presenters in major centers, but do not overlook unique small centers such as Chilliwack or Whaletown BC. Performances have also been presented by symphonic organizations in Owen Sound ON, Winnipeg MB, and Abbotsford BC.
Feeling some dissatisfaction with the status quo, the Moirs decided to return to university for graduate degrees, and were awarded full tuition scholarships to Boston University within the Historical Performance Department. Taking double majors in Harpsichord and Fortepiano, they coached with recording artist Mark Kroll and Igor Kipnis. They were fortunate in being able to tour while enrolled at BU and appeared in Manitoba, Ontario and toured eastern Massachusetts for SoHIP (Society of Historically Informed Performance) and upstate New York. Further studies, towards the DMA degree were undertaken with full tuition scholarship at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, where they were also on the faculty of the Cleveland Music School Settlement.
Upon their return to Canada they settled in White Rock. Concerts have recently taken them to the Berkeley Early Music Festival and Calgary, Alberta. Closer to home, they have appeared in concert in the lower mainland performing duo fortepiano works under sponsorship of the Vancouver Sun Newspaper, Panorama Ridge Concert Society, Fort Festival in Fort Langley, Heritage Concerts in Chilliwack, and appeared twice in the world's most funky concert hall, on Cortez Island. They performed the rarely heard Concerto for Harpsichord and Fortepiano by CPE Bach with the Fraser Valley Symphony and the Bellingham Herald chose them in February 2000 as one of the top 5 picks of the weekend's entertainment. Concert repertoire for that concert included the Mozart Sonata for two fortepianos as well as their own transcription of the "Little" g minor Symphony of Mozart.
To add tonal variety to their concerts, upon special request they have invited friends to join them in special evenings that include chamber works in addition to their usual duo fortepiano presentations. They recently presented programs that included the complete Schubert Sonatinas for violin and Fortepiano, and for another occasion they presented the complete Haydn trios for Flute, Cello, and Fortepiano interspersed with duo literature. During spring of 2001 they will be touring with a concert that will include an actor portraying Mozart. The Moirs have taken selected letters of Mozart and used them as the basis of the script, a script that starts in Versailles with the father (Leopold) being portrayed, and later Mozart himself discusses the trials and tribulations, as well as the joy, that was uniquely his life.
Contact details and further information
E-mail Moir Fortepiano Duo
For further details, see Moir Fortepiano Duo