Duo Symphonious: As Heard on TV

How’s it going, friend? It’s been a while since I’ve posted an update on my musical goings-on. So…happy new year! Chalk up my silence to my musical life looking quite a bit different in 2022 than in previous years, with 2023 looking more differenter still. (Not on the docket: grammar.) 

More on that soon. But for now, please join me for the first in a series of posts on 2022’s greatest hits, starting with Duo Symphonious...utterly transformed! 

Also, happy 4th of July.

Duo Symphonious: for your TV news and NFL enjoyment

2012, Portable Nutcracker photo shoot at the Presidio in SF. A simpler time, and 58% less bearded.

Remember how my guitar brother, Zac Selissen, broke my heart and broke up Duo Symphonious by moving to NYC in 2014? (I kid—we’re still homies.) Well, in 2022 we finally reunited—not to play classical guitar,* but to write music together. 

Zac has been composing music for TV for years now, publishing short instrumental segments that are made available to music supervisors for use in shows like 20/20, Dateline, and many others. You know when something really sinister is about to happen in a news magazine segment, because the musical underscoring tells you so? Then suddenly the strummy acoustic guitars strike up and you know everything’s gonna be OK? That’s the stuff. 

So Zac invited me to write with him. Our first collaboration was an ethereal piano-based piece, Floating on the Clouds, which appeared on the ABC News special 48 Hours That Changed the World (about the early days of the COVID pandemic). I composed and recorded the piano part, which Zac then embellished with orchestral sounds and effects. 

Next up: Outlaw Road, a down-in-the-dust, guitar-heavy tune that appeared on 20/20 ("Lyntell Washington: The Barefoot Witness"). Zac wrote and recorded the rhythm guitar and drum tracks, and I wrote/recorded the acoustic slide guitar part. 

I've saved the best for last. Remember The Portable Nutcracker? We decided to make the entire album available to music supervisors as well. Did you watch any football on Christmas Eve of 2022? If so, you may have heard our rendition of "Waltz of the Flowers," which was broadcast during four different games on CBS that day.

The Waltz was also placed the TLC show Welcome to Plathville. And our rendition of “Spanish Dance (Chocolate)” was used in an animated PSA for Aunt Leah’s Place, a non-profit in the Vancouver area. (Incidentally, our concert video of this piece is our most-viewed video on YouTube. Totally gone viral.)

It’s been awesome to work with my brother Zac once again. In other good news, Zac and his wife Kellyn became parents last year! 

*Oh, I just remembered: I said we didn’t reunite to play classical guitar, but in 2020 we actually did—virtually—with this series of short Portable Nutcracker videos that we posted on Facebook. ​​(Remember Facebook?)

Zac spends his time these days looking cool on the streets of Brooklyn.