By Jamie Hutchinson
The Los Angeles Guitar Quartet doesn’t like to draw lines when it comes to the music they incorporate into their performances. Having performed material written by Bach, Chet Atkins and both Frank Zappa and his son Dweezil, the Grammy-award winning classical guitarists seem to have no boundaries.
“What we try to do is play pieces that explore all the stylistic and color potential of four guitars,” said William Kanengiser, one of three original members still performing with the group.
Since 1980, the group has brought their blend of classical and popular music to sold-out concerts around the world. They’ve not only performed programs featuring African and Latin music, but bluegrass and reggae, as well. Yet, it’s not just their ability to seamlessly mix different genres that makes them appealing, it’s their knowledge of the instrument and the way they have taken it to different levels.
“People have a sort of fixed idea of what a guitar can do, especially classical guitar, and we try to throw things at people that they don’t expect,” Kanengiser said. Past performances have seen them adopting many different styles of music and using their guitars to imitate other instruments, such as a banjo or a percussion instrument.
Their ability to evoke the feeling of a popular genre like country music while still playing in the style of classical guitar and then seamlessly transition to music from four hundred years ago has much to do with why they’re praised by both audiences and critics.
While they’ve received acclaim from guitar magazines, such as Acoustic Guitar and Guitar Player, they’ve received acclaim from The Recording Academy too. In 2005, they received a Grammy award for best classical crossover album for their release “Guitar Heroes.” They also were nominated for a Latin Grammy for their recording of Sergio Assad’s “Interchange.”
Their concert in Moorhead is a special occasion as they plan to premiere a piece that was written for them by friend Tilman Hoppstock, a German classical guitarist and musicologist. Hoppstock, under the guise of his alter ego, British composer Allan Willcocks, wrote a piece that Kanengiser described as “if Ravel or Debussy wrote a piece for four guitars,” because it channels the French Impressionist harmonic and atmospheric world, but with a bit of a contemporary feel to it.
Other material set to appear at the performance are selections from “Guitar Heroes” and pieces by Chet Atkins, Dweezil Zappa, Pat Methany and Gerónimo Giminez. In addition to the performance, the four guitarists — John Dearman, Matthew Greif, Scott Tennant and Kanengiser — will lead a guitar techniques workshop that’s free and open to the public at noon the same day of the performance. Kanengiser said past workshops have seen them breaking down selections from the program and demonstrating how they put the piece together, showing both the challenges and the solutions.
IF YOU GO
Los Angeles Guitar Quartet
Thurs., Nov. 5, 7:30 p.m.
Minnesota State University Moorhead, Roland Dille Center for the Arts, 801 13th St. S., Moorhead
Tickets available at mnstate.edu/tickets or by calling (218) 477-2271
