Teacher of Piano Debbi Wyse and her close friend Kristi Gautsche have performed piano duos together at Hillsdale College every year since 1987. And at 8 p.m. on Friday and Saturday in McNamara Rehearsal Hall, they will perform again with a program entitled “A Song for all Seasons.”
“It is truly a rare opportunity to hear two 9-foot grands playing together in the same room,” said Wyse, who performs and teaches piano at Hillsdale. “It’s a pleasure for me to hear, even as a performer.”
Wyse said Gautsche, who is a member of the Hillsdale Arts Chorale and plays piano during services at College Baptist Church, is a phenomenal pianist and musician.
In selecting the pieces for this year’s program, Gautsche and Wyse attempted to capture the mood of each season, beginning with summer.
Although the duo chose household names like Claude Debussy and Peter Tchaikovsky to represent summer and winter, Gautsche and Wyse also included pieces from lesser-known artists. For instance, Darius Milhaud’s “Valse” will be one of the pieces representing autumn.
Wyse’s husband, Ned Wyse, will also take part in the performance with poetry recitations. Ned Wyse has memorized two-and-a-half hours of Robert Frost’s poems alone. This weekend, however, he will limit himself to only two poems, one being Fyodor Tyutchev’s “Tears.”