In my last post, I said I'd barely have time to catch my breath after finishing the Master's programme at Surrey before throwing myself back into (or "at") classical guitar. And so...
Yesterday I played with the Brighton Guitar Quartet at the wonderful Unitarian Church in Brighton as guests of the Sussex Musicians' Club. The latest (third? fourth?) line-up of the quartet is Ruairi Gann, James Hartt, Olivier Thereaux, and your correspondent. We'd really only got together before the big C struck back in the spring of 2020, so we've only had a couple of opportunities to play in front of an audience since getting together, but if last night's showing was anything to go by, I have to say that I think we've really gelled.
We played Andrew York's lovely "Pacific Coast Highway", originally composed for the LA Guitar Quartet (so no pressure there) and Roland Dyens' "Austin Tango". Both worked well, and for once we took the former at the tempo the LAGQ take it at, much improving on previous performances.
I also played my, er, party piece, Reginald Smith Brindle's "El Polifemo De Oro" and was especially pleased with it. I'd just decided to enjoy it as much as possible and make the performance, well, a performance. Gregg had also encouraged me in our last lesson to really concentrate on timbre and colour as much as possible, which I think I really went for. It was certainly helped by the beautiful acoustic at the church, which has a lovely "bloom" without being too soupy. Anyway, there were a few slip-ups and a bit of shakiness in the right hand in the second movement, but for once I think I more than just "got away with it".
Thanks to our teacher and mentor Gregg Isaacson for getting us in performance shape, and to the SMC for inviting us to play.
The guitar playing was sandwiched between two piano performances. Kevin Allen played Berg's bracing first piano sonata, and the young student Oscar Gardner turned in a stunning performance of two Debussy pieces.
Incidentally, the last time I played at the Unitarian Church was in a rather different setting: the first (and indeed only) Boom Logistics live show, with Pete Marsh on bass and Paul May on percussion:
All in all, a highly enjoyable evening. Next weekend, I'm playing at the Guitars by the Sea workshop, led by Stephen Gordon, Jon Rattenbury, and Gerald Garcia, and have a huge amount of music to prep for that. I'll report back!
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