With their new album Dear Franz, Duo Ebano – clarinetist Marco Danesi and pianist/composer Paolo Gorini – celebrate their ten-year partnership. Both hailing from Italy, they met each other in the Netherlands while studying at the Amsterdam Conservatorium. From this collaboration, they developed a personal approach to the work of Franz Schubert: Gorini created a series of new arrangements and adaptations especially for this album.

Gorini: "On the album, we move as it were with a magnifying glass between transcriptions that stay close to the original and freer arrangements, which sometimes feel almost like new compositions."

The result is a contemporary soundscape in which Schubert's music is brought to new light. The album also features a collaboration with soprano Elisabeth Hetherington (The Shepherd on the Rock), recently awarded the Borletti-Buitoni Trust Award.