The Chopin duet arrives in India with a Western Classical performance on June 19

Pianists Chloe (right) and Chelsea de Souza at their Bandra West home. Pic/Atul Kamble

Chelsea de Souza's earliest memory of Western Classical music was on the breakfast table. Her "musically-inclined" father, Colin, would play records of the collected works of composer-pianist Frederic Chopin as she and her younger sister Chloe polished off their bowls of porridge. "I still have a very strong memory of listening to Chopin before heading to school," says the Houston-based pianist, whom we meet at her family home in Bandra West. "That's how it all began."

The 29-year-old, who is a Steinway Young Artist - a title conferred upon only the best pianists of their time by a programme handled by Steinway's Concert and Artist Department - has spent the last 12 years at music schools across the US pursuing an undergrad at Oberlin College and Conservatory, before a Master's at Peabody. She is currently in the midst of completing a doctorate at Rice University. On June 19, Chelsea, as part of an ongoing musical tour in India, will lead a lecture recital The Silk Road: A Tale of Musical Trade between East and West at the NCPA, where she will be presenting the music of composers significantly influenced by their Western or Eastern contemporaries, including the late Parsi-identifying pianist Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji and Indian-American composer Reena Esmail. She is also one half of the pianist sister duet that recently enthralled a discerning crowd in Porvorim, Goa with their electrifying performance of the Emmanuel Chabrier's Spanish Rhapsody.

The St Andrew's Zonals, a mega competition between parishes in Bandra, is where her talent was nurtured, first as a vocalist and later, a pianist. "That's where I got my first wins. It was a yearly event, and motivated me to keep going... I got to perform on such a big stage for so many people. Having access to that auditorium was a special thing," says Chelsea, who was trained early on by pianists Shanti Seldon and Blossom Mendonca.

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At the age of 13, Chelsea stood second in an all-India competition held by Mehli Mehta Music Foundation, where the participants were as old as 30. She was invited by one of the judges, Sheila Arnold, who taught at the Hochschule fur Music or School of Music in Köln (Cologne) in Germany, to train under her during the summers. "I hadn't experienced music education of this nature, because we don't have higher Western Classical education in India," recalls Chelsea. A three-summer scholarship with Arnold proved to be a game-changer, and led Chelsea to eventually do a double degree in politics and piano at the Oberlin.

Baltimore-based Chloe, just a year-and-a-half younger to Chelsea, describes herself as a "late bloomer". While Chelsea started piano lessons at age five, Chloe who is a gifted singer, got her hands on the keys only when she was around seven. Initially studying with pianist Myrna Fernandes, she stopped learning it in her early teens, keen perhaps, on singing. "But I realised that I could make this a career when I came across the Romanian concert pianist Delia Varga in Goa at the age of 14 or 15," says the 28-year-old, "I studied an entire summer with her, and we worked very intensely."

After completing junior college at St Xavier's, she joined her sister Chelsea at Oberlin, where she did a double major in voice and piano, before completing a Master's at Eastman School of Music in New York. Like her sister, she's also in the thick of her doctorate studies in piano performance at Peabody. "Studying music can be very expensive," their mother Christine, who has joined us, says, "But both my girls managed to secure an 80 per cent scholarship."

As independent artistes, who also often perform as a duet on the same piano, both Chelsea and Chloe draw a lot from each other. The sisters' first performances together were as kids. "I would sing and Chelsea would play," recalls Chloe, "But slowly, during undergrad, I began moving towards the piano." At some point, they took a semester of playing piano duets at Oberlin, and worked with a coach. Now living in different cities in the US, they prepare for their pieces independently, before coming together and practising for a few days.

"Chloe and I are very different musicians, especially when it comes to our approach," says Chelsea. "My path," she adds, "is more about how many different ways I can explore my strengths and skills, even within music." Chloe, on the other hand, has always had a single-minded focus ever since she knew she wanted to become a pianist. Audiences who hear them play often tell them that "you both sound the same and have the same mannerisms at the piano". When the duo performs Spanish Rhapsody for this writer, we see why. Chelsea's brown curls and Chloe's long hair layered with gold highlights, are where the dissimilarities end. Their heads bob almost in unison while they keep rhythm, and their fingers lift and drop, as if following the same tempo, while touching the keys, sometimes gently, often not. "It's funny, but it's only the two of us who really know the difference," says Chloe. "But that's why we work so well together," adds Chelsea, "...because we've seen the growth of each other's musicianship. And it makes it so easy to predict what the other person is going to do on stage. It makes it quite exciting, because we can take risks, and feel like the other person is going to meet us where we are at." "For instance," says Chelsea, "I love when she surprises an audience with her singing. Recently, in Goa, as an encore to her recital, she sang I Could Have Danced All Night, and nobody knew this was going to be happening. The audience was really taken aback... they didn't know she is as good a singer as she is a pianist."

At the same time, because the sisters have different approaches to assimilating and performing music, they are constantly challenging each other. "There's competition, but it's healthy."