A complex, yet danceable duet

Christine Carrillo

Two pianists sit at a 1920s midsize Steinway and try to meld their

individual sounds into one. They calculate every movement of their

fingers with surgical precision while one of them orchestrates the

pedals, so as to not step on the other’s toes.

These are the complexities of a piano duet, which M’lou Dietzer,

who frequently performs as a soloist and chamber musician, and Pennie

Foster, who is an accompanist for the Saddleback Master Chorale and

an organist-pianist for a Laguna Beach church, have mastered.

The Janice Duo has been performing duets with one another for two

years and have developed an expert approach that allows them to

successfully reveal one voice. At 5 p.m. today in the Orange Coast

Unitarian Universalist Church in Costa Mesa, they will perform a

program of dance music for a piano duet.

“Logistically, we’re often playing the very same part of the

piano,” Dietzer said. “We have to work out methods of playing the

high and playing the low because, when you play duet music, you do

want it to sound like one person playing the instrument. ... It’s a

very difficult thing.”

The performance is part of the church’s Victoria Chamber Series,

which began five years ago to raise money to rebuild its Steinway,

and has been continued because of its initial success. The piano duet

performance, which is one in a series of six, will include music by

Liszt, Ravel and David Burge, the last of whom will be in attendance.

“I’m looking forward to hearing them perform and to see what kind

of an audience there is,” he said. “It will be a lot of fun. A

composer naturally feels [the audience reaction] rather keenly, and

one hopes that the performers will be projecting something of the

idea that you had in mind and that the people are finding what they

are hearing to be interesting.”

With that challenge before them, the two polished performers are

excited about the program’s debut.

Dietzer, whose interest in music started with her mother, has been

playing the piano by ear since she can remember and has since turned

that musical inclination into a skill that she teaches to others.

“I always knew that I wanted to be a pianist,” said Dietzer, who

is a professor at Cal State Fullerton. “My mother was a pianist, and

I would go to the piano when I was tiny and try to play. It’s been my

life’s work.”

Foster, like Dietzer, developed an ear for music because of her

parents’ passion for it and has also moved into the field of music

education.

“Being a teacher, for me, is the same energy as being a student,”

said Foster, who teaches at Saddleback College. “I don’t think we’ll

ever stop learning, and that is the very joy-filled part of this.

That is part of what’s creating the fun, because ... we’re open to

that excitement of learning.”

Just as Dietzer and Foster have managed to benefit as a performer

from the relationship of their additional role as teacher, Burge has

also benefited from his additional role as composer.

“I have always felt, and that feeling has only increased over the

decades, that learning something about composing, learning what the

composers of your own time are doing, gives a great deal of insight

in to how to perform,” Burge said. “Being able to play and bring out

other people’s music, whether it be Beethoven or Bernstein, helps

very much in the creative process.”

Tickets for the concert are $12 for adults and $7 for students.

Free parking will be available directly adjacent to the church, which

is at 1259 Victoria St. For more information, call (949) 651-8493.