Carpe Diem String Quartet was in Columbus recently with guitarist Nicolo Spera performing Boccherini's Guitar Concerto #4, Fandango, Hugo Wolf's Italian Serenade, and Edvard Grieg's Quartet for Strings in g. CDSQ was live on Classical 101 recently - and you can hear that performance and conversation here.
Along with three performances at the McConnell Arts Center in Worthington they were also at Columbus Commons downtown collaborating with Columbus Dance Theatre and Get the Led Out for an evening of music and dance called Rock Out in the Park. Why am I telling you about a concert that has already happened" Because it perfectly illustrates CDSQ's mission: Taking classical music in it's many forms to anyone who will listen. To introduce this music to people who might never darken the door of a traditional concert venue.
In a recent article, Paul Morley - who writes for The Guardian - said, "Pop belongs to the last century. Classical music is more relevant to the future."
He went on to say, "For me, pop music is now a form of skilfully engineered product design, the performers little but entertainment goods, and that is how they should be reviewed and categorized. The current pop singers are geniuses of self-promotion, but not, as such, musicians expressing glamorous ideas." He makes valid points. Companies who record and release pop music maintain very tight control over their product.Artists are carefully packaged and producers with a proven track record are in high demand. Risks in that arena are calculated. Sound is sculpted. One ill-considered tweet or post can send a career into a nose dive. Morley says that the risk takers, those who were looking to rattle some musical cages, are mostly in the classical music world. This brings me back to Carpe Diem String Quartet. While Luigi Boccherini, Hugo Wolfe, and Edvard Grieg are well-known composers in classical music, Danny Elfman, Lawrence Dillon, (whose music CDSQ will play in Columbus in October), or Jimmy Page and Robert Plant - not so much. This is about pushing music ahead, testing it's boundaries, and taking risks. This is what makes classical music relevant.