Guitarists strike a chord at gala
“Don’t mess with success” and “the more the merrier” are two clichés Emma Rush didn’t avoid while programming this season’s Guitar Hamilton Gala.
Like last year’s sold-out inaugural gala, Rush has cast the second edition, which takes place Saturday, April 29 at 7 p.m., in the same format: guest artists play a number or two or three and the whole thing ends with a bang courtesy of a guitar orchestra. That’s the “don’t mess with success” part. However, because of last year’s overflowing success at The Rock on Locke, Rush is holding this year’s gala in the much larger sanctuary of Melrose United, 86 Homewood Ave.
That means there’ll be plenty of room for Tim Phelan’s Mohawk College Guitar Ensemble to open with “Le retour de la panthère bleue” (“The Return of the Blue Panther”) a quasi-big band arrangement for guitar ensemble by French guitarist-composer Thierry Tisserand. GH patrons heard the piece when the Mohawk College Ensemble was the warm-up act for the tangoing Bandini-Chiachiaretta Duo at the Hamilton Conservatory on Jan. 29.
“Part of the idea of the gala is that it brings a larger community of guitarists together,” wrote Rush in an email to The Spectator from Newtown, Wales, where she was spending a week at her dad’s place. “The orchestra has young and old beginners, advanced students, professional performers. I like to reflect that in the other acts, too.”
So, in that vein, Jesse Luciani, a Mohawk alumnus now a senior at Brock U studying with Phelan, will perform Johannes Moeller’s “Song to the Mother.” Picking up where Luciani leaves off will be Nova Scotian pro Shawn Pickup playing Edino Krieger’s “Ritmata” while Toronto-based composer-guitarist William Beauvais will trot out at least one of his originals. Kitchener-Waterloo-based early music specialist Terry McKenna will pull out his smaller, terz guitar for the third movement of a Mauro Giuliani concerto. Rush’s Azuline Duo with local flutist Sara Traficante will do up Astor Piazzolla’s “Libertango” while Phelan will reprise Floyd Turner’s arrangement for classical guitar of Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody.”
Scottish guitarist Matthew McAllister, an artist Rush has been trying to line up for quite some time, has eagerly agreed to pop by for a few of his own arrangements of Scottish lute pieces.
Thereafter, all of the above mentioned solo guitarists will join with the MCGE to form a 44-piece guitar orchestra — that’s “the more the merrier” part — as Rush takes the solo spotlight in Phelan’s “Fantasía para una dama” (“Fantasia for a Lady”). That seven-minute, single movement concerto, which took several weeks to complete, was commissioned by the Nykoping (Sweden) Guitar Seminar, and was premièred there by Rush with Phelan conducting the seminar orchestra last Sept. 3. The two then reprised the work in October with The Mighty Niagara Guitar Orchestra at Brock U’s Guitar Extravaganza II.
For Nykoping, Phelan knew that his work would be paired on a bill with Joaquín Rodrigo’s 1954 “Fantasía para un gentilhombre,” which was based on dances for solo guitar by Gaspar Sanz, a late 17century Spanish composer. So, in a tip of the sombrero cordobés, Phelan incorporated two tunes used in Rodrigo’s “Fantasía,” Sanz’s “Canarios” and “Espanoleta,” into his own “Fantasía.” But Phelan’s concerto isn’t just another homage to Rodrigo or Sanz. It was composed expressly with Rush in mind.
“Emma has a fantastic technique,” gushed Phelan over the line from his St. Catharines home. “I know that she loves to play energetic music. So, this ‘Canarios’ is a very energetic dance to begin with. There’s quite a bit of fireworks in the solo guitar part.”
As for the “Espanoleta” theme, Phelan said that would show off Rush’s “expressive skill” and “wonderful lyricism.” After the soloist’s cadenza, the two Sanz tunes are briefly heard dancing together before Phelan’s “Fantasía” finishes with a flourish on “Canarios.” Now that should make for una gran olé.
Saturday, April 29 at 7:30 p.m., David Holler’s Chorus Hamilton plus soloists perform Haydn’s “Theresienmesse” and Vivaldi’s “Dixit Dominus” at St. Paul’s United, 29 Park St. W., Dundas. Tickets: $25 advance (chorushamilton.ca); $30 at the door.