Inouye Six Hands began its musical journey in Gunnison Valley, where sisters Mika, Sarah, and Seidi Inouye studied piano, strings, and dance with local area teachers. All three went on to study at Brigham Young University earning Masters degrees in piano performance and pedagogy. The sisters all still reside in the mountain west but haven’t performed in the valley since their multiple summer Inouye Institute creative arts camps from 2007-2013. In 2009, as part of Gunnison’s centennial celebration, they produced History/HerStory/OurStory, a creative recounting of Sanpete’s history, with more than sixty local youth participants.

Inouye Six Hands first debuted at the 2021 Durango Chamber Music Festival, as a tribute to their father Dwight Inouye who had recently died from COVID. This collaboration grew into an ongoing project to research, perform, and teach the unique genre of six-hand repertoire to students and teachers all over the country as showcased at the American Orff Schulwerk National Conference in South Carolina last year.

The sister act will present a free concert as part of their Utah holiday tour on Sunday, December 11th at 3:30 pm at the Casino Star Theatre (CST) as an offering to their beloved hometown of Gunnison.

Inouye Six Hands is the second concert in CST’s Live Performance Season. Kurt Bestor’s popular long-running holiday concert showcases his original arrangements of Christmas classics with a guest string quartet this year. Tickets are still available for his Thursday, December 8th shows at 4 and 7:30pm at www.casinostartheatre.com and the CST’s Box Office.

The CST Live Performance Season is supported in part by local sponsorship partners ACT Aerospace, GTELCO Lightburst Broadband, Gunnison Valley Hospital and Gunnison Implement Company. The next show in the performance season will be the musical group Red Feather Acoustic Quartet in January.

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