The next Fretworks program this Saturday evening will feature music with an American theme for the Memorial Day weekend, as well as music of J. S. Bach, and a guitar concerto by Ferdinando Carulli.
The Modern Mandolin Quartet will play their arrangement of the opening movement of Czech composer Antonin Dvorak's American String Quartet. Dvorak wrote his most popular chamber work while in the United States for three years in the 1890's as head of the newly formed National Conservatory of Music in New York City.
In the summer of 1893, Dvorak visited the Czech community in Spilville, Iowa. There, he wrote his String Quartet No. 12 in F, inspired by the landscape and the music he heard, as well as by nostalgia for his Bohemian homeland.
We'll also hear the Los Angeles Guitar Quartet perform music of Aaron Copland from the ballet Rodeo, and John Williams will play his arrangement of Scott Joplin's The Entertainer. David Tanenbaum has the Guitar Sonata No. 2 from 1979 by Alan Hovhaness.
The program will also include David Russell playing the Prelude, Fugue and Allegro by Johann Sebastian Bach, and Kazuhito Yamashita and the Leos Janacek Chamber Orchestra will have the Guitar Concerto in A from the early 19th century guitarist composer Ferdinando Carulli.
Join me for music of the classical guitar, and some mandolins this week on Fretworks, Saturday and Wednesday evening at 7 on Classical 101.