Program Note

This volume contains five engaging four-hand "Concert Duets", each with a different musical character to expand the players' interpretive experience and please audiences. In addition, every piece focuses on a specific technique or skill that the intermediate pianist needs to master.

I composed these pieces to address some of the problems common to intermediate level piano players. There are special advantages to playing duets at this stage of advancement, beyond encouraging technical and musical progress. Working on duets with another player will inject fresh enthusiasm into music study at a time when some intermediate students may experience a "plateau" in progress.

We are, undeniably, social creatures and making music together has a special joy. However, unlike choral singers and band or orchestral players, the pianist is often left out of the ensemble experience until relatively advanced.

Intermediate pianists will truly benefit from the energizing effects of studying a piece of music with one another. Indeed, striving toward the shared goal of an expressive duet performance requires each player to develop the entire spectrum of skills: aural, technical, personal and interpretive that combine to make a complete musician.