This 4th of July holiday weekend brings us the Modern Mandolin Quartet and the Texas Guitar Quartet with four times the fun of a solo mandolin or guitar. Aaron Copland's Hoe-Down from the ballet Rodeo is given a rousing performance suitable for a barbeque by the Modern Mandolin Quartet and the Texas Guitar Quartet plays their arrangement of Bach's Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 with appropriate swagger, on the next Fretworks.
William Grant Still, known as "the dean of African-American composers," studied with Edgar Varese at Oberlin and with George Chadwick at the New England Conservatory. He wrote Dances of Panama in 1948, and they are based on Panamanian folk tunes. Each of the four movements has two or three separate dances within it. This lively music sounds great arranged for three guitars as performed by the Philadelphia Classical Guitar Trio.
New Orleans-based guitarist Giovanni De Chiaro presents music from the American songbook as represented by great tunes from Broadway musicals on his CD "The Guitar on Broadway." We'll hear Some Enchanted Evening and Gonna Wash That Man Right Out-a My Hair from Rodgers and Hammerstein's South Pacific.
Contemporary American composer Lukas Foss wrote his concerto for guitar and orchestra, American Landscapes, in 1989. Sharon Isbin will be the soloist with the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra and Hugh Wolf conducting for the final movement. Also, the Texas Guitar Quartet, a group from a part of the country with some big landscapes, performs their arrangement of J.S. Bach's Brandenburg Concerto No. 3.
To end the next Fretworks on a patriotic note for the Fourth of July weekend, guitarist Stuart Weber plays his arrangement of Samuel Ward's America the Beautiful. Join me for music of the classical guitar Saturday and Wednesday evenings at 7 on Classical 101.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YcprVLb_XCY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i7OpvXy-NEY