Piano fans can hear the music of not just one skilled performer but two at an upcoming concert featuring musical arrangements for four hands.

South Whidbey residents and friends Karen Heather and Eileen Soskin are joining forces for this unique performance, which takes place 2 p.m. on Saturday, March 15 at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Whidbey Island, located at 20103 Highway 525 in Freeland.

Both musicians have been playing the piano from a very young age.

“As soon as I could reach the keys, I started playing. I didn’t take lessons until 5,” Soskin said, recalling a silly composition she sent to President Dwight Eisenhower.

Heather began her lessons at a similar age, although she started playing by ear at the age of 3. She graduated from Sacramento State University in piano performance and received a master’s degree in music history from the University of Oregon. Several years later, she was thrilled to study piano with a resident artist from the Moscow Conservatory, earning another postgraduate degree.

Soskin earned her Ph.D. in music theory from the University of California at Berkeley. She spent the last 20 years of her career at the Peabody Conservatory of the Johns Hopkins University before moving to Whidbey in 2010. She taught music theory and analysis at the Peabody Conservatory, University of Iowa, University of California at Berkeley and San Francisco State University.

On the other hand, Heather spent most of her time in the Bay Area until recently, where she taught piano and performed with various chamber music groups. In 1992 she founded a Chamber Music Series in the Noe Valley neighborhood of San Francisco and presented outstanding musicians and chamber groups for 25 years.

“I was told by a very good friend in San Francisco that I must meet Eileen Soskin,” Heather said.

Heather moved to Whidbey in 2020, shortly before the COVID-19 pandemic arrived on the scene and halted all gatherings. After meeting, the new friends didn’t see each other for two years.

“We became friends and then I heard her play, and I thought, ‘Oh, wow,’” Soskin recalled. “I think she’s a really good pianist and what makes a four-hand recital attractive to any player is finding the right person to play with.”

Playing so close to each other, one can easily feel the breath and movement of the other person.

“Musicians who play together can either be a good fit or not,” Soskin said. “It’s kind of like a marriage, or a good friendship.”

Both she and Heather play at several other pianos around Whidbey and have both been involved with Outcast Productions, where they have directed musicals. This will be their first concert together.

Next weekend, Soskin and Heather are performing a program of music for four-hand piano duets influenced by the languages and cultures of France (Claude Debussy and Cécile Chaminade), Austria (Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart), Czechoslovakia (Antonin Dvořák) and America (Aaron Copland). Composed over the course of more than 150 years, each piece has its own unique aspect.

Though people may be familiar with the work of Debussy thanks to pop culture, they tend not to know Chaminade, a female composer who critics thought wrote music that was “too masculine.” Chaminade studied privately with many others and became the first female composer to be granted admission to the Order of the Legion of Honour, the highest and most prestigious French order of merit.

Copland, the American composer, may be another lesser known musician. His work is said to evoke wide open spaces of the American landscape.

According to Soskin, Mozart is the most difficult to play because of his breadth and clarity in his music. While an extra note might normally go unnoticed in another’s composition, this is not the case for Mozart’s works.

Listeners will be uplifted by Dvořák’s rousing music, which Soskin described as a Czech dance. The program is bookended by his music, being played at the beginning and the very end.

“We hope you will feel free to stay after the concert and share with us what you heard and perhaps what you felt while listening to some of the pieces we performed,” Soskin wrote in her program notes.

There is a suggested donation of $25 at the door for the concert. Admission is free for children under the age of 12.