About

duo Anime is a percussion duo created by Andrew Pongracz and Mell Csicsila. They started performing together as a duo for various projects while students at Cleveland State University and have continued performing together ever since. They have presented programs for many performing arts organziations including the Musical Arts Association, the Logan Series at Behrend College, the Cleveland International Piano Competition, the Cleveland Composers Guild, the Percussion Marketing Council, and the Local 4 Music Fund. In addition to working together as a chamber group, they frequently work as side musicians backing artists like Aretha Franklin, The Who, Yes, Clay Aiken, and as the percussion section for many performance events at Playhouse Square, the Cleveland Chamber Symphony, and a wide variety of groups across the region.

Their repertoire includes contemporary percussion works, transcriptions of classic music written for other mediums, and new works written expressly for them. While they enjoy the excitement of working with composers on new works, they cherish finding worthwhile lesser known works that have gotten less attention in the years following their premieres.

Their current repertoire includes works by composers like Daniel Dorff, Bertold Hummel, Karl Kohn, Marta Ptaszynska, Wayne Siegel, and Nancy Van de Vate, and transcriptions resetting music from the last 300 years of music history.