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Duo Fae at Hill and Hollow

The gift of music runs in Katherine Petersen’s family.

“My Dad is an amateur pianist, and I always heard him practicing ever day,” Petersen told the Enterprise during a phone interview Sunday. “He used to take my brother and I to concerts, and he asked us one day, ‘Do you guys want to play an instrument?'”

Her father explained the siblings could choose to study any instrument they wanted, and, while her brother chose the violin, Katharine chose another instrument for a very specific reason.

“I said, ‘I’m going to choose the piano and be just like Daddy,'” Petersen explained with a laugh.

Since making that choice at the wee age of five, Petersen, a native of Westford, Massachusetts who currently lives in Montreal, has excelled as a pianist. She attended the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, Massachusetts, where she received her Bachelor of Music degree. She earned her Master’s degree at McGill University’s Schulich School of Music in Montreal, and she is currently pursuing her doctorate from the same institution.

Petersen is one half of Duo FAE, a violin and piano duo that performs classical music. The other half, violinist Charlene Kluegel, the core violinist with Fifth House Ensemble, resides in Chicago, Illinois and is pursuing a Doctor of Music degree at Indiana University’s Jacob School of Music.

As Petersen explains, the duo is based out of “Nowhere,” as they live in separate cities.

“We travel a lot,” Petersen said. “It’s just the way we agreed to do things because we never ended up in the same city.

The duo met at Aspen Music Festival in 2008 and discovered they had a lot in common.

“We lived together for an entire summer,” Petersen said. “We’ve been best friends ever since, and we were having a conversation one day about how difficult it is to find people to play with who have the same interests that you do, who happen to live in the same place that you do.

“We said, ‘Hey, we’ve got the same ideas, let’s try it,’ because we don’t necessarily have to live in the same place.”

Petersen explained this arrangement is fairly common in the world of music.

“It just ended up working out really well,” Petersen said.

Petersen said there is an interesting story behind the group’s name. Kluegel suggested referencing the German motto ‘Frei Aber Einsam,” which can be translated as “Free but alone” and “Free but lonely,” an attitude espoused by one of the duo’s favorite composers.

“We’re both really hardcore (Johannes) Brahms fans, and this is a motto Brahms himself adopted,” Petersen said. “I joke that it was a poetic name for the group because we don’t live in the same place, so we’re ‘Free but lonely.’

“I liked having the acronym there, and it’s a little bit of a joke for people who actually get it.

“A lot of the times, we get mistaken for ‘The Fairy Duo,’ but that’s not what we intended.”

Petersen is looking forward to Sunday’s performance at Hill and Hollow; the group has intended to return to the venue since completing a retreat program there about two years ago.

“We haven’t had a chance to do a concert until now,” Petersen said.

The performance will feature Sonatas by Ludwig van Beethoven (F Major, op. 24, the “Spring”), Charles Ives (No. 2) and Gabriel Faure (No. 1 in A Major, op. 13).

“We think (Ives) is a terribly fun piece,” Petersen said. “It’s sort of emulating all of these 20th century Americana ideas. There’s a typical hoedown in the middle of the piece, which is so funny, and, in the middle of that, it’s almost like everyone’s had too much to drink, the musicians included. The violin and the piano aren’t quite synced together, and then somehow they manage to find their way back by the end of the piece.

“Beethoven is kind of ‘The hope of Spring,’ and right now, we could use a little of that. This has been the worst winter ever – in Montreal, it’s been dreadful, and I’m sure in New York it’s the same.”

Duo FAE will perform Sunday at 3 p.m. at the Methodist Church on Route 3 in Saranac. The suggested donation is $12 to $15, and children under 12 are exempt from donating.

For more information, visit www.hillandhollowmusic.org or call 518-293-7613.

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