We know that Sor studied music seriously and wrote works for instruments other than guitar – so how many of have actually heard any of his other music?
Here is a recording by Sir Neville Marriner of his first symphony. More on iTunes
And here is some piano music played by Josep Maria Roger.
The National Youth Guitar Ensemble are performing at St.John the Evangelist, Oxford,UK on the 9th of April 2015.
The programme will consist of original compositions for guitar ensemble including:
Leo Brouwer – Acerca del cielo, el aire y la sonrisa
Gary Ryan – Flower of the Field
Shingo Fujii – Quatro Ritornelli
Gerald Garcia/Mozart – Wiegen and K.546
Carlo Domeniconi – Oyun
Celso Machado – Folguedo
Previous to this concert they will be playing on 8th April, 6.00pm at the Thomson Hall in Abbots Bromley School, Stafford.
Some time ago, Les Frères Méduses, Randall Avers and Benoit Albert, came and played a stunning gig in the shed. Their reason for coming to the UK from Norway and France was to rehearse music for the film –
“THE UNKNOWN”
• live music performed to Tod Browning’s classic silent film “the Unknown (1927)”
• LFM score including music by Ravel, Granados and DeFalla
• violin and 2 guitars
The score was co-commissioned in 2012 by The Austin Classical Guitar Society and the Alamo Draft House and premiered at the Laguna Gloria in Austin.
It received a nomination for Best Chamber Music Performance by the Austin Critics Roundtable.
Here is a link to the performance
Personnel
Randall Avers/Benoit Albert, guitars
William Fedkenheuer, violin
Todd Waldron, audio
Arlen Nydam, camera, film editing.
Last month, Nejc Kuhar (that’s pronounced Nates Kuhar) visited me in Oxford.
I first met this genial Slovenian composer and guitarist at the Iserlohn Festival and was impressed by his playing and general quiet but friendly manner.
He has been composing up a storm since I last met him, and I too the opportunity to quiz him over a pint in the famous Kings Arms pub in central Oxford. He is very tall and had to stoop to get in the snug at the back. We talked about the reason for his visit to the UK, his attitude to composition and his studies with Alvaro Pierri.
Here are some videos of Nejc playing and composing
Composing in real time
Quasar
Black Hole
Hommage a Erik Satie
Thanks to selftaughtgirl
Recording of a radio broadcast of a studio concert by Julian Bream in 1986.
Bennett: Impromtus, Sonata (first broadcast performance)
Thanks to Open Culture and Josh Jones for this:
Reinhardt and jazz violinist Stéphane Grappelli founded the Quintette du Hot Club de France in 1934, and in the forties, Reinhardt began composing, and toured England, Switzerland, and the U.S. as a soloist with Duke Ellington’s band. He recorded his final album, Djangology in 1949, retired in 51, and died in 53, already a legend, “one of the few European musicians to exert a serious influence on the American art form of jazz,” writes an NPR “Weekend Edition” profile. Django’s playing, “at times joyous, fierce and lyrical,” draws heavily on his Roma roots while mastering the vocabulary of swing—a language, it seems, still new to many audiences in 1938, when the film at the top of the post, Jazz “Hot,” was made.
Related Content:
Jazz ‘Hot’: The Rare 1938 Short Film With Jazz Legend Django Reinhardt
Django Reinhardt and the Inspiring Story Behind His Guitar Technique
In 2002, I was invited to write a concerto for the Christée-Baldissera violin and guitar duo. This was performed in the German town of Bad Munder.
I finished the piece in a couple of weeks and heard nothing from the duo or the conductor for weeks. Jeanne Christée requested a more virtuosic final movement which I rewrote as a tango and battle between the soloists and the orchestra!
Finally I received an invitation to attend the concert and worked out how get to Bad Munder.
It was quite a journey, compositionally and geographically.
Alison and I got off a train at Bad Munder to find the station was in the middle of the countryside with no clue as to where the town was. Far away on the horizon there was a steeple, so we headed out towards it across snowy fields. It was indeed the town, but there was absolutely no one around.
I had never heard the duo and luckily they had the music down to a tee despite problems with the guitar amplification. We spent the rest of the day wandering around the snowy ghost town. It was beautiful, with traditional north German wooden houses.
In the evening, there were suddenly hundreds of people attending the concert – where had they all come from?
Many years later, my friend Sergej Krinicin of the Baltic Guitar Quartet asked if he could play the piece – he had a duo with the violin virtuoso, Vilhelmas Cepinskis.
Vilhelmas wanted the concerto rewritten for symphony orchestra, but it was originally conceived for strings! We finally agreed it should be played in its original form, and the concert was given in February 2013 but the Lithuanian State Symphony Orchestra conducted by Robert Bokor.
This was a big concert which was televised, and I managed t get an audio recording of the whole piece.
Here is the middle movement:
Here is the audio of the complete concerto
The National Youth Guitar Ensemble is currently looking for young talented guitarists who have a passion for performing and interacting with like-minded musicians to audition for the ensemble’s 2015 courses.
If you know of a gifted guitarist aged 13-18 years old, that is of at least grade 6 standard then NYGE would love to hear from them.
Details below
Link to the audition flyer :
Excerpts from last summer’s concert with the Vida Quartet
Cuerda Pa’rato arr. Louis Trépanier
Spectral Dreams by Gerald Garcia
Auditions are taking place in January at the following venues:
2015 AUDITION DATES & VENUES:
Successful candidates are invited to attend two residential courses per year. Bursaries are available to students in financial difficulty.
Applicants need to be 13 – 18 years old on the 1st September 2015 and the equivalent standard of grade six or above.
Successful applicants are invited to attend two residential courses at Easter and in the summer led by Musical Director Gerald Garcia. The VIDA Guitar Quartet performed with NYGE for the 2014 concert season. Other past artists and conductors with NYGE include Leo Brouwer, Gary Ryan, Chris Susans, Carl Herring, Belinda Evans and Keith Fairbairn.
Bursaries for the courses are offered in cases of need.
Applicants can apply for an audition online here
Beauty. Youth. Talent. Passion Marga Abejo, Iqui Vinculado and Jenny de Vera are Triple Fret, the only all-female classical guitar trio in the Philippines. They have captivated the hearts of music lovers all over with their refreshing brand of music, performance, and love for the classical guitar. Their goal is to transcend barriers of different social class, culture, and religion, to truly bring the joy of music to all. Formally trained in the premiere music schools of the country, Triple Fret stands out with their extensive repertoire of Spanish, Filipino traditional, and well-loved classical pieces, all infused with a style uniquely their own.
So the write up goes, and I have to agree. I was lucky enough to meet and listen to this talented trio in a recent visit to Hong Kong where they were playing at Music City. Their enthusiasm and love of the guitar comes through in their playing and the way they are so open and excited by other performers and teachers. David Russell’s appearance was a source of a flurry of photo snapping! Being of Filipino descent myself I was particularly interested in the way they included Filipino music into their programmes and their wish to make this music more well known around the world with the help of expert arranger, Jeffrey S. Malazo. While I was there, Jenny and Jeffrey were engaged! We had just had an amazing meal in a Japanese restaurant with sashimi, sushi and Korean barbecue (pretty protein rich meal). It was also Jeffrey’s birthday and the enterprising restaurant owners made him a cake consisting of sushi rice and shrimp eggs. Here are some clips of Triple Fret’s concert in Music City, plus a short interview I made with them.
Here is an interview about their debut album “Gitara Filipina”
Here is an interesting article with more music from VerJube Photographics
An interesting issue of Soundboard with contributions from Sergio Assad and Stephen Goss, amongst others.
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