Double Treble, featuring duets for piano and organ, comes to Aurora March 2

Roderick Demmings Jr. and Karl Van Richards present Double Treble, a free concert featuring duets for piano and organ, at 7 p.m. Wednesday, March 2, at the St. John AME Church, 2950 Bilter Road in Aurora. This is Double Treble's Chicago debut and the Midwest stop on their 2016 nationwide concert tour, which includes stops in Atlanta, Baltimore, Dallas, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C.

The audience will be in for a feast as the duo has assembled a compelling and diverse program which opens with the "William Tell Overture" by Giaochino Rossini, one of the most outstanding pianists of color from 19th-century America and Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 by J.S. Bach. The varied program will also include Franz Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 which has been made popular by the Tom and Jerry cartoon and Double Treble's interpretation of Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue," perhaps the most celebrated fusion of African-American blues with European classical music.

Double Treble hopes to reestablish the relevance of classical music and revolutionize its universal perception.

With this young and energetic duo, concertgoers attending Double Treble should expect the unexpected. "The concert is not only entertaining but educational as well, not in a lecture-recital format, but rather in a witty two-man show way. It is a recital filled with humor, dialogue, audience participation, challenges and of course virtuosic music making at the highest level," noted Demmings Jr. and Richards. Patrons attending this concert will enjoy collaboration of four-hands at one piano, two hands and two feet at the organ, as well as the combination of piano and organ together.

Since the group's formation in June 2014, Double Treble has performed at the 95th convention of the National Association of Negro Musicians in Los Angeles, California; Unity Church in West Palm Beach, Florida; Preston Hollow Presbyterian Church in Dallas, Texas at and was a special guest at the "Classics in June" concert at the University of the West Indies, Mona Campus in Kingston, Jamaica. Double Treble comes to Chicago fresh from their New York appearance during Black History at the Convent Avenue Baptist Church in Harlem. The group will perform next in Dallas March 18-19. To learn out more about Double Treble, go to www.doubletreble.org.