Photograph by George Sakkestad
Betty Deutschlander-Noto and Mary Johnson will be giving their first recital together in decades, at Pilgrim Haven in Los Altos on April 4.
By KATHERINE PETERSEN
After more than 25 years of not playing piano together, Mary Johnson of Sunnyvale and Betty Deutschlander-Noto of Palo Alto will give a recital at Pilgrim Haven in Los Altos. The two will perform a 40-minute program on two pianos that will feature a balance of classical and modern songs.
A mutual friend introduced the two piano players 30 years ago, and they played duets while their children crawled between the instrument's legs.
"It turned out we had a lot in common. We both played piano, and we're both short and have red hair," Johnson said.
The two took a few weekend getaway trips together and developed a close friendship. They gave a few duet concerts in their homes and took one on the road to a retirement community.
But then Johnson had to go back to work to care for her family, and she began a 20-year career as a music teacher at St. Andrew's School in Saratoga.
Deutschlander-Noto continued teaching private lessons and playing, but the two didn't have any time to meet and play piano.
"We would talk on the phone or have lunch. We kept in touch to know what the other was doing," Deutschlander-Noto said. Each divorced and remarried during the time they didn't play together.
"Something always brought us back together. There were things about her I admired and things about me that she thought were neat," Deutschlander-Noto said.
The first thing Johnson wanted to do when she retired from St. Andrew's was to begin playing with Deutschlander-Noto again.
"So we renewed the relationship again and spent a year practicing before setting up the recital at Pilgrim Haven," she said. "I wanted to repeat history a little. It was always a personal goal of mine to get back to my own piano playing and teaching private lessons."
Johnson and Deutschlander-Noto picked up right where they left off, they said. "She's a fun person to be around and very easy to work with. We don't have a lot of fireworks when we work together," Johnson said. "We've come full circle."
The concert is scheduled for April 4 at 7 p.m. Pilgrim Haven is located at 393 Pine St. in Los Altos.
This article appeared in the Sunnyvale Sun, April 2, 1997.
©1997 Metro Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved.