Melbourne Classical Guitar Gigs in September and October

Nicole NealLeave a comment

Aside from the super-talented Xuefei Yang visiting our shores in the not-too-distant future, we’re also in for a treat with some serious homegrown talent (homegrown in Melbourne, Australia that is) coming up this week and into October.

If you’re looking for some mid-week guitar action  I highly recommend heading along to the Melbourne Recital Centre to catch the third and last gig in the Melbourne Guitar Quartet’s 2014 series at the the MRC.

 

The Melbourne Guitar Quartet will perform a retrospective of the works of two of Australia’s most respected composers: Nigel Westlake and Robert Davidson.

Both have contributed superb works to guitar literature and this program celebrates their music with a selection of unique arrangements and original settings. Ambience, stillness and rhythmic drive feature heavily, using many different guitars (including steel string and dobro), percussion and Ron Murray on didgeridoo.

The gig commences in the Salon of the MRC at 6pm on Tuesday 16th September, and lasts for around 1 hour. You can have fantastic top-of-the-tree classical guitar action and still be home in time for tea!

In all seriousness though I highly recommend checking these guys out if you can – their musicality and tight sense of group musicianship is inspiring.

Tix can be purchased here: https://e.melbournerecital.com.au/booking/production/bestavailable/6289?performance=

 

So, there’s the Melbourne Guitar Quartet for you this week, and then there’s Xuefei Yang in a couple of weeks time, but what’s after that?!, I hear you say.

Well, fret no further, the wonderful Grigoryan Brothers along with the immensely talented American composer-guitarist Ralph Towner and equally talented Austrian composer-guitarist Wolfgang Muthspiel are coming together to present what promises to be an awesome blend of jazz, contemporary classical and world music. A must see concert in you’re in Melbourne on Tuesday 28th October at say, oooh, 7pm

The Grigoryan Brothers, Towner and Muthspiel are all intent on expanding the guitar oeuvre, and have led vividly different forays into world, jazz, and modern classical music. This performance brings together the range and diversity of their outstanding talents in solo, duo and trio sets of pre-composed pieces, spontaneous composition and improvised mastery on a variety of guitars (baritone, 12- string, electric and classical), creating a unique aural soundscape.

Head over here for more info and bagsie yourself some tickets: http://www.melbournerecital.com.au/events/2014/grigoryan2/

Check out their collective playing  with these YouTube clips:

The LMusA Diploma Journey – Update #6 – Time Away From The Guitar

Nicole NealLeave a comment

Well hello folks! This week I’ve been on my travels again with my work, so that means I’ve been away from my guitar – eeek! Hah hah! All good – sometimes I feel it can be quite beneficial to have an enforced small period away from the instrument. Beneficial, that is provided that I’m using the time I would otherwise be using for practice to do other music and/or guitar related things.

And so this week I have been carrying out research into the piece I’m currently learning -Frederic Mompou’s Suite Compostelana. Over the last couple of months I’ve slowly but steadily been getting the first movement of the Suite, the Preludio, under my fingers, making sense of the music’s direction and shapes, getting to know its “feel”, exploring different sounds.

Whilst I’m going through this initial exploratory phase I don’t tend to listen to any recordings of the music, so as not to influence my own thoughts and perhaps intuitive feelings about a piece. Once I’ve started to form up some ideas, however, I do like to then explore again some other interpretations.

So this week has been a perfect time to do that. And so aided by a wonderful set of new headphones, to enjoy the sounds to their fullest (and not annoy the folks in the hotel room next door by playing the same piece over and over!) I’ve been listening to various recordings of the Preludio from Mompou’s Suite Compostelana thanks to the wonders of Spotify and YouTube. Attempting to do this a number of years ago whilst travelling would have a clumsy exercise lugging around a number of CDs and CD player!

I thought I’d share with you all my favourite recording thus far. It’s by a Portuguese guitarist byt the name of Gil Fesch (previously unknown to me until this week). Here’s a video of Gil playing movements 1 to 3 (Preludio, Coral and Cuna) of the Suite Compostelana by Frederic Mompou: