WEST HILLS : Sisters Pursue Their Family’s Love of Music

Like many children, the Dicterow girls are told to practice every day for their music lessons. Unlike most, they each have three instruments to play and an audience of family virtuosi.

Andrea, 11, and Erica, 14, have each played the violin and piano since age 5, encouraged by their father, a substitute violinist with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, their grandfather, the Philharmonic’s principal second violin and their uncle, concertmaster of the New York Philharmonic.

Erica also plays the guitar, and Andrea has taken up the trumpet. So by the end of the day, most of their free time has been spent instruments-in-hand.

“Sometimes it’s a pain having to practice so much,” Erica said. “And it’s hard for us to find a teacher. My dad is very picky.”

But Erica said she enjoys playing. And the drudgery has its payoff. In the living room of their spacious West Hills home, the sisters skillfully perform Bach’s Double Violin Concerto in D Minor.

If one hits a wrong note, the other shoots her an obvious glance.

“You can tell what mood they’re in by the way they are playing,” said their mother, Haeja, who is studying piano. “If they are not putting their feelings into the music, you can tell without even being in the room.”

“During practice time, there may be tears a lot of times,” said Maurice Dicterow, their father. “But once they get done with the session, they are in a much better mood.”

The girls take their music outside the family home, to school orchestras and recitals. Andrea is the concertmaster of her orchestra at Meadow Oaks School in Calabasas. And Erica, who is a freshman this year at El Camino Real High School in Woodland Hills, plans to join the school orchestra there.

“I’m not pushing them to be professional musicians,” Maurice Dicterow insisted. “This is for themselves. There’s nothing like the feeling of sitting in an orchestra and being part of that sound.”