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Buku Broux - A Kora Player in Jackson Square

Thank you to Marc Maron for mentioning My First Guitar:  Tales of True Love and Lost Chords by 70 Legendary Musicians in his podcast interview!  

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The Romeros Brothers at the 92nd Street Y

The Romeros performed late October in the 2014-15 season of the 92nd Street Y’s Art of the Guitar series. Pepe Romero and Celin Romero, sons of the legendary guitarist Celedonio, were joined by the third generation of Romeros, grandsons, Celino and Lito.

The Romero family has been at the forefront of classical guitar for decades. Celedonio Romero, the colorful patriarch of the clan, performed as a 14 year old for Miguel Llobet, student of guitar legend Francisco Tárrega, and went on to study with composer Joaquín Turina at the Madrid Royal Conservatory. While there, Celedonio spent his off hours hanging out in cafes with painter Salvador Dali and poet Federico García Lorca. During the Franco regime, Celedonio was not permitted to give concerts abroad but, in the late 1950s, he managed to secure a set of American visas and escaped with his family to the U.S. , where he formed a guitar quartet with his three sons.

Poster for the film documentary Drop City, courtesy of Pinball Films.

Drop City screens in Istanbul

The film documentary Drop City, which features Julia Crowe’s guitar music in its soundtrack, will screen again this year in Istanbul on December 16th at the 2014 Istanbul Tasarım Bienali/2nd Istanbul Design Biennial, free of charge. The screening will take place at 19:30 at FilmTAK in Kadıköy, Tasarım Atölyesi Kadıköy, Telefon: +90 216 418 52 98 // TAK, Rasimpaşa Mh., Duatepe Sk. No:61.

Anton Baranov performing at Carnegie Hall for the D'Addario Performance Series.  Photo courtesy of Sham HInchey.

Guitarists Lin and Baranov at Carnegie Hall

Guitarists Chiawei Lin and Anton Baranov performed late October in the opening concert of the D’Addario Foundation’s Performance Series at Carnegie Hall. The series, first established in 1981, was re-launched in 2011 and is now entering its fourth season.

Jimmy Page discussing his new book release in a talk moderated by artist Jeff Koons at the 92nd Street Y in New York.  Photo by Joyce Culver.

Guitarist Jimmy Page arrived this week in New York to launch his memoir, which documents his contribution to music in over 650 photographs, starting with his early adoration for the guitar and American blues music, folk and rockabilly up through his current collaborations. Page originally released a hand-bound limited edition of 2,500 numbered and signed copies of his book, Jimmy Page by Jimmy Page (Genesis Publications) in the spring of 2010. The fastest-selling book in the publisher’s 40 year history, this new release is considered a more accessible and affordable printing. It’s a beautiful, visually absorbing book that would make a perfect gift for any fan.

Internationally renowned artist Jeff Koons introduced Page for their talk at the 92nd Street Y’s Kaufman Concert Hall. Koons confessed that he was 14 years old when he first heard the Led Zeppelin I album, saying, “It changed my life.  It gave me a sense of hope and expansion.” The two spoke as photographs from the book, which Koons selected, were projected onto a screen behind them.

Cover photo of Lenny Kravitz taken by Mathieu Bitton in Vigevano, Italy in 2012.  (Rizzoli Books)

Lenny Kravitz Comes Home

Lenny Kravitz is celebrating the next 25 years of a Grammy-filled career with the release of his tenth studio album, Strut (Roxie Records) and a new hardcover book, Lenny Kravitz (Rizzoli). The book is an elegantly curated collection of photographs taken of Kravitz throughout his career by the top names in fashion and art photography, including Steven Meisel, Mark Seliger, Patrick Demarchelier, Ellen von Unwerth as well as many others, listed at the end of this article. The book includes a foreword by Rolling Stone contributing editor Anthony DeCurtis, a conversation between Lenny Kravitz and recording artist and producer Pharrell Williamsand an afterword by the art dealer and advisor Marla Hamburg Kennedy.

Left to right:  Matt Greif, Scott Tennant, William Kanengiser and John Dearman of the Grammy-winning Los Angeles Guitar Quartet.

LAGQ's Kickstarter Campaign for New CD

The Los Angeles Guitar Quartet is self-producing their new CD, entitled, New Renaissance, and needs your help with the remaining days of their Kickstarter campaign. Their new CD’s repertoire includes a special set piece arranged by quartet member William Kanengiser, excerpted from LAGQ’s 2009 “Don Quixote” collaboration with John Cleese, along with re-imagined older classics from Renaissance Spain, England, France and Italy, arranged by composers Ian Krouse, Dušan Bogdanović and quartet member Scott Tennant. Brian Head is producing and Rich Breen is engineering the material, which was recorded at The Bridge Recording Studio in Los Angeles.

Left to right:  Bokyung Byun, Alberta Khoury and Tengyue Zhang.  Photo by Julia Crowe.

Juilliard Guitar Students Perform

Earlier this month, three guitar students who study with Sharon Isbin at Juilliard, gave a free weekend concert at The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center. Bokyung Byun, Alberta Khoury and Tengyue Zhang took to the stage to perform together as a trio, opening with Jacques Chandonnet’s spirited arrangement of Manuel de Falla’s Danza del juego de amor followed by Isaac Albéniz’s Córdoba, Op. 232, No. 4. As a trio, the group plays with cedar guitar warmth, clarity, unison and good balance.

Christian Frederick Martin (1796-1873), New York, ca. 1834, Body Length: 17 1/4 in., Spruce, maple, ebony, ivory, mother-of-pearl, Onloan from C.F. Martin IV, photograph by John Sterling Ruth, Courtesy of C.F. Martin Archives.

THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM'S EARLY AMERICAN GUITAR EXHIBIT

If you haven’t yet visited the Early American Guitars: The Instruments of C. F. Martin exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, hurry: it closes December 7th.

Located in the The André Mertens Galleries for Musical Instruments in Gallery 684 on the second floor, the exhibit features thirty-five rare guitars that track the early development of the instrument making in America.  The guitars include those from the museum’s collection as well as from the Martin Guitar Museum in Nazareth, Pennsylvania and several private collections.

According to Jayson Kerr Dobney, Associate Curator in the Department of Musical Instruments at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the exhibit came about as a collaboration with colleagues who were writing the book Inventing the American Guitar: The Pre-Civil War Innovations of C.F. Martin and His Contemporaries (Hal Leonard).

“Several colleagues of mine, who range from collectors to dealers to museum curators to guitarists, converged to discuss what they saw as common features among early American guitars,” Dobney says. “In one of their first meetings, they suggested bringing together as many of these early guitars as they could to see what could be learned by bringing together as many guitars as possible so they could see how the work of luthiers like C.F. Martin progressed.

Dr. Martin Chalfie, guitarist, composer and the 2008 Nobel Prize Winner in Biochemistry for the discovery and development of the Green fluorescent protein (GFP) at his office in Columbia University in New York, where he teaches. He is standing beside a silk-screened image of one of his round worms with its nerve cells illuminated by GFP.  Photo by Julia Crowe.

A NOBEL PRIZE-WINNING GUITARIST

On the day the Nobel Prize in Chemistry was announced in 2008, Dr. Martin Chalfie slept through the official phone call from the Nobel Prize Committee.  He woke at ten after six and wondered to himself, “Okay, who’s the schnook that got the Prize this time?”  When he opened his laptop and visited the Nobel Prize site, he discovered he was the schnook.

Dr. Chalfie, a lifelong classical guitar aficionado, shared the Nobel Prize in Chemistry with fellow biochemists Osamu Shimomura and Roger Y. Tsien in 2008 for the discovery and development of the green fluorescent protein (GFP) at Columbia University in New York, where he teaches. The discovery of GFP allows scientific and medical researchers to tag living cells and genes with the florescent protein and observe their active biological processes, a technique now used widely to investigate diseases like cancer, AIDS and Alzheimer’s.

For Dr. Chalfie, the guitar has always been a close companion. He recorded a podcast this year for the Nobel Prize Committee on how playing the guitar and composing leads to discovery. This summer, I dropped by his office to learn more.

Egberto Gismonti.  Photo credit:  Roey Yohai Photography.

Egberto Gismonti returned to New York on September 12, 2014 after a 10-year hiatus to perform to an enthusiastic audience at the Peter Norton Theatre at Symphony Space. The concert was presented by the Americas Society, sponsored by the MetLife Foundation.

Introduced by Music Director Sebastian Zubieta, Gismonti opened his program on guitar with a set of three pieces performed classical-style on an acoustic nylon 10-string guitar. His first piece, Alegrinho & Saudações, coaxed a multiplicity of rising and falling calypso rhythms and sonic textures from the bass strings. After a brief guitar-tuning interlude against the Steinway piano onstage, Gismonti repositioned the nonslip cloth onto his left leg and played his second guitar piece, Mestiço Coboclo & Dança, which evoked a traditional Spanish sound and groove which had Gismonti bobbing along.  Its rhythms burst into jovial fretboard tapping along the bass strings and simultaneous, galloping pluck of right hand treble strings.

Guitar maker Thomas Fredholm in the shop.  Photo courtesy of Rita Olofsson.

Guitar maker Thomas Fredholm started making acoustic steel string guitars then dedicated himself to making classical guitars for two decades before coming full circle to creating his distinctive steel string acoustics again in the old C.F. Martin tradition. Artists like Steve Earle, John Leventhal, Andy Summers, Zac Brown, Dan Tyminsky, Will Kimbrough, Sofia Karlsson, Jim Salestrom, David Russell and John Dearman of the Los Angeles Guitar Quartet number among his clients. And it is safe to say he is the only Swedish luthier who splits his time working on his craft between his shop Göteborg, Sweden and his second home in Sri Lanka.

Egberto Gismonti.  Photo by Ziga Koritnik.

In advance of Egberto Gismonti’s concert September 12th at Symphony Space, presented by the Americas Society, the legendary Brazilian jazz musician graciously agreed to interview with The Guitar Blog. [This post will be updated shortly after 9/12 with concert photos, video footage and a review.]

Egberto Gismonti’s five-decades-long career in music reflects the heart, sophistication and diversity of Brazilian soul, from its indigenous, popular, dance and classical styles, to a musical voice steeped in jazz and infused in its own complex and distinctive sound. He has released over 60 albums in his career and has written for film and ballet.

For his upcoming concert at Symphony Space, Gismonti will be performing solo works on the piano as well as solo works on the guitar.