PORT ANGELES — The two Port Angeles High School sweethearts are still playing, working and traveling together — and this Tuesday night, they’re coming home for one diverse concert.
The Bottom Line Duo, Traci and Spencer Hoveskeland, have performed with many orchestras. Among the first was the Port Angeles Symphony back in the late 1980s while they were teenagers.
After graduating high school, they went together to Western Washington University to study under several noted teachers, “and their careers took off,” said David Jones, organizer of the new Maier Hall Concert Series at Peninsula College.
The duo will step onto the Maier Hall stage at 7 p.m. Tuesday; tickets are $15 for general admission or $5 for students.
Tickets are available at www.peninsulacollege.camp9.org and at the door of Maier Hall, which is in the southwestern part of the campus at 1502 E. Lauridsen Blvd.
The Hoveskelands have played the Fairbanks Music Festival in Alaska, the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., Carnegie Hall in New York City and venues across Europe, Canada and
Mexico.
They have six CDs so far, including two with apt titles: “Long Dissonant Romance” and “Waiting for the Sun.”
But what of Tuesday, when the partners will play the intimate Maier Performance Hall?
“We call it Victor Borge meets Carol Burnett meets AC/DC and a Mozart symphony,” Spencer quipped. “There will be marital dueling,” in the musical sense.
He also promised tunes ranging from “The Flight of the Bumblebee” to the Bangles’ “Walk Like an Egyptian.”
And while Traci plays the cello, her Spencer plays the double bass and the flamenco ukulele.
He learned to play the uke back in 1977 when he was a student at Fairview Elementary School in Port Angeles.
He’s played the little instrument and the big bass ever since, bringing the latter into Seattle’s theaters for “Fiddler on the Roof” with Theodore Bikel, “Cinderella” with Eartha Kitt, and “Chicago” with Tom Wopat.
He was principal bassist of the Whatcom Symphony for six years, played for the Bolshoi Ballet when it performed in Seattle and appears as a session musician on the soundtracks of “About Schmidt” and other movies.
And, Spencer said, he “occasionally picks up the electric bass to accompany the screaming guitars of famous rock stars.”
Traci, in addition to her Bottom Line Duo work, is principal cellist for orchestras at the Paramount and 5th Avenue theaters in Seattle; she’s also provided the deep tones for the Tangoheart and Sorrelle ensembles.
This Tuesday, the Bottom Line Duo will cross the line between entertainment and high art — and then use their strings to bring the two together.
This is a concert, Spencer added, that “Gen X can take their parents to.”
For more information on this and the rest of the Maier Hall Concert Series, phone 360-417-6405.
To learn about other public activities at the college, visit www.pencol.edu or www.facebook.com/PeninsulaCollege.
Features Editor Diane Urbani de la Paz can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5062, or at diane.urbani@peninsuladailynews.com.
