Please note the correction: October 8th: Letters from Composers & Platero w/ Douglas Hensley 

For anyone who’s interested, the previously named Guitar Victoria method books are being rebranded and given away for free. You can download a free copy of volume 1 (88 page PDF) here. Some upcoming concerts:

October 2011:

• October 8: Letters from Composers & Platero and I guitar & song, poetry, with visuals. Douglas Hensley and more.
• October 7: FridayMusic – University of Victoria guitar students from the studio of Alexander Dunn.
• By the way, Dr. Dunn has a new recording available at his website

International Guitar Night XI
Friday, April 1st at 7:30 PM
Cowichan Theatre, 2687 James St., Duncan, BC V9L 2X5
Cowichan Ticket Centre 250 748-7529
www.cowichantheatre.bc.ca
Adult: $28.00 |Cowichan Folk Guild Members $22.50 | Student: $19.00 | eyeGo: $5.00

Welcome to guitar heaven! For the 11th annual IGN, founder Brain Gore, also known as San Francisco’s ‘guitar poet,’ will be joined by Brazil’s Marco Pereira, a stunning virtuoso talent with a captivating melodic style on nylon-string guitar. Joining them is Adrian Legg from England, who plays custom guitars that are a hybrid of electric and acoustic, and Germany’s Lulo Reinhardt, a descendant of Django Reinhardt, who mixes his family’s trademark Gypsy Jazz with new forays into Latin music.

Musick’s Silver Sound: Shakespearian Songs & Dances

Date: Friday, February 18 at 8 pm, pre-concert talk at 7:10
Event: Classical music
Programme:  Elizabethan/Jacobean songs and dances
Artists: Baltimore Consort (USA)

Venue: Alix Goolden Hall, 907 Pandora (at Quadra)
Tickets: Members $20; Adults $25; Seniors/Students $22; students $10 rush; tickets available at the Royal McPherson Box Office (250-386-6121) or at the door

EMSI Infoline: 250-882-5058 or visit http://www.earlymusicsocietyoftheislands.ca for programmes and news
EMSI Contact: Dr. James Young, joy@uvic.ca, 250-592-4058

Artists’ Website: http://www.baltcons.com/
Artists’ Contact: Larry Lipkis, melal01@moravian.edu

Infectious rhythms and rollicking tunes make the Baltimore Consort a perennial favourite with a wide range of classical, folk and world music audiences.

“The audience loved every minute.” — The Post & Courier (Charleston, SC)

Baltimore Consort returns to Victoria on Friday, February 18 with a programme of Elizabethan dances and songs from Shakespeare’s plays. The programme’s title, Musick’s Silver Sound, is drawn from a song by Richard Edwards (1525-66) quoted inRomeo and Juliet. Writing for a theatre in which music was as natural as the drama and comedy, Shakespeare included about forty such songs in his plays, ten of which are found in this programme. Their tunes, the popular songs of Elizabethan England, would have been well known to a contemporary audience and are as close in this concert as we can get today to those Shakespeare intended.

Only the words were written into Shakespeare’s scripts.  Of the musical settings for his songs that have come down to us, the most likely to have been actually performed on the Globe’s stage are those by John Johnson (1540-1594) and Thomas Morley (1557/8-1603). Johnson was a court lutenist to Elizabeth I. While we have a few fine compositions by native English lutenists before him, he can reasonably be regarded as the founder of the school of English lute music of the Golden Age which was to culminate in the work of John Dowland (1563-1626). Johnson absorbed both the prevailing Italianate style and a more idiosyncratically English taste to produce a substantial body of work of real distinction. His work in this programme is represented by Ariel’s song Where the bee sucks, from The Tempest, and two dances.

The organist of St. Pauls Cathedral from 1588, Thomas Morley is best known today for his legacy of bright, secular madrigals. Though he lived for some time in the same part of London as Shakespeare, the connection between his tunes and Shakespeare’s texts is unproven. The programme includes his famous setting of It was a lover and his lass, from As You Like It, and three dances from his First Book of Consort Lessons for the broken consort.

A band of various soft instruments called a ‘broken consort’ was popular in Elizabethan and early Jacobean England. Combining the sultry viols, the ethereal flute, the ‘sprightly and cheerful’ cittern, the ‘deep’ bandora and the ‘noble’ lute, Baltimore Consort is such a group, capable of many moods from the joyful to the melancholy.

Founded in 1980 to perform the instrumental music of Shakespeare’s time, Baltimore Consort has explored early English, Scottish, and French popular music, focusing on the relationship between folk and art song and dance. Their interest in early music of English/Scottish heritage has also led them to delve into the rich trove of traditional music preserved in North America. Recordings on the Dorian label have earned them recognition as Top Classical-Crossover Artist of the Year (Billboard).

This performance marks the Victoria debut of Baltimore Consort’s soprano, Danielle Svonavec. She is a graduate of the University of Notre Dame, where she now teaches voice.  While still a student, she stepped in on short notice as soloist for the Baltimore Consort’s nine-concert 1999 Christmas tour. Since then she has toured with the Consort and appeared with the Smithsonian Chamber Players, Pomerium, the South Bend Chamber Orchestra, and the South Bend Symphony. She currently serves as the Cantor for the nationally televised mass at the Basilica of the Sacred Heart at Notre Dame. Danielle lives with her husband and three daughters on a farm near Goshen, Indiana.

Baltimore Consort was last here in March, 2008 with a program of Spanish songs and dances.

Baltimore Consort (publicity photo)

Seated: Danielle Svonavec, Jose Lemos (not at this concert)

Standing (from L): Ronn McFarlane, Mindy Rosenfeld, Mark Cudek, Larry Lipkis, Mary Anne Ballard

DATE/TIME: Thursday, November 25, 2010, 7:30 pm
EVENT: VCM Presents Concert Series: International Guitar Night V
VENUE: Alix Goolden Hall, 907 Pandora Ave.
TICKETS/ADMISSION: $25 general/$20 students and seniors. Available at the Victoria Conservatory of Music, McPherson Box Office, and at the door.
INFO: 250.386.5311 ext 285 bookings@vcm.bc.ca
LINKS: www.vcm.bc.ca

International Guitar Night V features Alexandre Gismonti an exciting young Brazilian guitarist and son of the legendary Egberto Gismonti and Pino Forastiere from Italy one of the leading players of the new contemporary steel string guitar world England’s show stopping steel string guitarist Clive Carroll and Brian Gore from San Francisco.

Artist website: http://internationalguitarnight.squarespace.com/

Friday November 5 – Victoria, BC

Spiral Café 418 Craigflower Road

Showtime at 8:00pm

Free show! (pass-the-hat in effect)

Listen at www.rosetteguitar.com

Also on lastfm at http://www.last.fm/music/The+Rosette+Guitar+Duo

See the RGD on Youtube at http://www.youtube.com/user/rosetteguitar

The process of meditation draws us inward.

At the same time it opens our eyes to an expanse beyond ourselves. The music we hear in our daily lives brings with it this experience – lifting us out of our earthly realm while at the same time isolating us in our understanding and response to sound.

The Rosette Guitar Duo crafts music that invokes the spirit of meditation in all of its forms – relaxation, contemplation, rejuvenation, and joy shimmer through the delicate tones, rich harmonies and intricately woven melodies that the Duo masterfully perform.

Since 2001 the two members of the Rosette Guitar Duo (or RGD as their fans call them) have collaborated in creating a new and innovative music that at once pushes the boundaries of what is commonplace and embraces the familiar. Since its inception, the RGD has performed hundreds of shows across Canada and its members have refined their approach to realizing music of substance and integrity through four recordings of original compositions.

Both members are classically trained concert guitarists in their own right and bring this level of attention to detail, passion, and skill to the Duo’s music. This devotion to the performance aspect of music combined with each members varied musical experience and wide range of influences creates a rich palette of sounds that resists categorisation and truly sets the RGD in a league of its own.

The RGD continues on a unique creative course with the latest offering entitled “Meditations”, an album which brings the duo ever closer to musical transcendence.

What the press is saying about RGD…

“…a sophisticated mix of skill and creativity…”

“…buoyant and delightful…”
-Red Deer Express

“…telepathic interplay and graceful musical finesse…”
-Guitar Nine Webzine

“…Fresh, lively, and entertaining, it will satisfy many a discriminating ear…”
-Synchronicity Magazine

The Vancouver Classic Guitar Society is pleased to present American guitarist James Reid in in the opening concert of our 2010-2011 season:

Sunday, October 31, 2010 at 1:30 P.M.
Arbutus Music Academy 4255 Arbutus St., Vancouver BC.
$20 adults, $15 seniors, students, VCGS members.

Mr. Reid will also adjudicate our 2nd Annual Student Day at the Quaker Meeting House, 1090 West 70th Avenue, Vancouver Saturday, October 30th, beginning at 10:30 am.

Program: JamesReidProgram.pdf

Artist website: http://www.jamesreidguitarist.com

Vancouver Classic Guitar Society: http://www.vancouverguitar.org

Contact email: vancouvercgs@gmail.com

Phone: (604) 261-9380

DATE/TIME: Friday, March 26, 2010, 8:00 pm
EVENT: Global Arts Concerts presents Alpha Yaya Diallo
VENUE: Alix Goolden Hall, 907 Pandora ave.
TICKETS/ADMISSION: On sale now at the McPherson Box Office 250-386-6121 (to purchase online click here)
INFO: (250) 360-2406  info at globalartsconcerts.com
LINKS: http://alphayayadiallo.com/ www.globalartsconcerts.com

Guitarist and singer Alpha Yaya Diallo, from Guinea in West Africa, is one of the hottest acts on the current world music scene. Now based in Vancouver, Canada, he’s earned a matchless reputation internationally for the excellence of his musicianship and the excitement of his live shows – whether performing solo or with his band Bafing. Diallo is a uniquely multi-talented artist. His dexterous acoustic and electric guitar-playing, with its fluid melodic lines and compelling grooves, places him in the front ranks of African musicians. His band Bafing features high energy African rhythms, visually stunning dancers and a dynamic percussion section.

EMSI Presents:

Constantinople (Montréal)
with Françoise Atlan, voice (France/Morocco)
and Enrique Solinis, baroque guitar/theorbo (Spain)

First Dreams: Epics for a New World
Friday, March 19, 2010 at 8 pm
Introduction at 7:10 pm by Robert Holliston
Doors open at 6:45 pm
Alix Goolden Hall, 907 Pandora at Quadra

Baroque music, Mexico and the singular vision of Latin America’s first female poet, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, are intimately woven in this fascinating programme.Differencias by Ruiz de Ribayaz and Santiago de Murcia are featured together with the fiery words of one of the Hispanic world’s greatest writers

Ten-String Music (Kay Cochran, viola and Douglas Hensley, guitar) are joined by violinist Molly Janz for a programme of music from the mid-16th to the mid-19th century. Chamber works by Haydn, Carulli, de Salvo, Matiegka, Morel, Ortiz, as well as works for solo theorbo (Piccinini) and vihuela (Narvaez & Mudarra).

Featuring works by Canadian composer Jacques Hetu, Spanish composers Turina and Torroba, Italian composer Regondi, Cuban composer Brouwer, and Argentinian composer Piazzolla!