It’s not easy to be taken seriously as a composer when you’re one of the country’s leading musical satirists.

Peter Schickele is best known as the professor who “discovered” the works of the long-lost (some may say rightfully so) composer P.D.Q. Bach. Schickele will be bringing his Jekyll and Hyde Tour to the Maine Center for the Arts at 8 p.m. Friday.

But Schickele is also a more traditional composer who has written works for orchestras and smaller classical groups, movies, stage and TV. John Rockwell of The New York Times says Schickele’s works have given him “a leading role in the ever-more-prominent school of American composers who unselfconsciously blend all levels of American music.”

P.D.Q. Bach is “a little bit of a cross to bear, because people [listening to his traditional compositions] are always waiting for the other shoe to drop,” Schickele said by phone from his New York City home.

The Orono show will feature Schickele aided and accompanied by soprano Michele Eaton and tenor David Dusing. The first half of the evening will feature Bach works, the second half will be original party pieces by Schickele.

Schickele said P.D.Q. Bach is important for two reasons: “His music is so fallible. People hear it and say ‘I can do better than that.’ So it has therapeutic value. Also, it shows there were incompetent composers in the 18th century as there were in the 20th century.”

Schickele hasn’t toured much with Bach’s works in the past decade, coming out every year in December at Carnegie Hall to show off the latest discoveries.

Instead, Shickele, who also is the host of “Schickele Mix” carried by National Public Radio, is working on traditional compositions (he eschews the term “serious,” explaining, “My works are not all serious. They have comic touches as well”).

He’s currently working on a double concerto for violin, oboe and orchestra, as well as his second symphony.

“Most of my work is commissioned,” he said. “I will always write pieces for piano and chamber groups that aren’t commissioned. But the bigger pieces tend to get expensive.”

There are more than 100 P.D.Q. Bach works in existence, and Schickele remains hopeful of discovering more.

“There certainly will be more discovered, but not at the rate they have been discovered in the past,” he said.

Tickets are available at the MCA box office, or by calling 581-1755.