10-String Guitar Recital

My friend Stanley Alexandrowicz will be playing a guitar recital 8 p.m. Saturday Nov. 13 at the Paul Robeson Center for the Arts, 102 Witherspoon St., Princeton. The program consists of half 19th Century music and half more recent works. One of the first things that interested me about Stanley when I met him over 20 years ago was his rigorous scholarship, a seemingly fathomless curiosity and knowledge of guitar repertoire and classical music history in general. Performing with him--either in historical or newly written music, sometimes even my own--is always a thrill.

In this concert, he'll be using a 10-string guitar favored by many 19th century guitar virtuosos. I had never heard of such thing until he brought it up recently. He sent me an explanation that he had prepared for other curious musicians and I'm including some excerpts here:

By the mid 1830's MOST of the virtuoso guitar composers were adding a string or two for enhanced harmonic/sonic possibilities. … By the END of the Romantic period, nearly ALL of the great virtuoso guitar composers had found that ten strings would serve their needs. … As I explored the 19th C. repertoire, I realized that MANY of these pieces just don't "sound right" on the modern guitar. For example, one piece I found ONLY needed a low D as part of its structure—but if I tuned the sixth string [normally tuned to E] TO low D, the fingerings to get the low E were impossible! So with ten one can have all the options.

Stanley goes on to talk about how this style, used by guitar builders of the "Viennese/Russian" school, was overshadowed by the popularity of the Spanish style guitar, largely due to the influence of world-acclaimed virtuoso Andres Segovia.

Even the SIZE of the guitar fingerboard was influenced—Segovia had big, FAT fingers, so a wide … fingerboard became standard.

But with the rise of interest in historical accuracy, guitarists are rethinking the reliance on the 6-string model and finding that some of the 19th Century compositions really require the extra low strings. He also implies that the interior construction, and thus the sound of the instrument generally, is better than the Spanish model.

Composers on Stanley's Nov. 13 program include Ivan Padovec, Napoleon Coste, Witold Lutaslowski, Vaclav Kucera and Manuel Ponce. For more information call 609-924-8777 or visit The Arts Council of Princeton website.

--C.
www.theandofone.blogspot.com
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Stanley Alexandrowicz at Christ's Church

Guitarist Stanley Alexandrowicz, a friend of mine from way back, is playing a solo recital 4 p.m. this Sunday at Historic Christ's Church, 2 Paterson St., New Brunswick. The recital is part of the church's Evensong presentations.

In addition to being a tremendous player, Stanley is also a great researcher of guitar music, uncovering gems new and old all the time. Sunday's program is a veritable "Who's Who" of whos you never heard of:
-Ouverture de la Grotte de Versailles (de Lully)--Robert de Visee
-Andante in C-Major (WoO)--Napoleon Coste
-La Source du Lyson (Fantasie), op. 47--Napoleon Coste
-Grand Caprice pour la Guitare Op. 34--Luigi Legnani

Of course, the unknown is always more interesting until it becomes known. But in Stanley's case, I think we're guaranteed that the music will be interesting on its merits and not merely as curiosity.

Like all Evensong concerts at Christ's Church, this is free. For more information, phone 732-545-6262 or visit http://www.christchurchnewbrunswick.org.

--C.
http://www.theandofone.blogspot.com

Kucera 80th Birthday Tribute

On Wednesday, Oct. 21, at 8 p.m., guitarist Dr. Stanley Alexandrowicz will be performing at Goucher College in Baltimore with members of the Music Department Faculty in a program dedicated to the 80th birthday celebration of Czech composer Vaclav Kucera. On the program will also be a world premiere of mine, a fantasy for solo guitar called In Perilous Seas that Stanley commissioned from me last year.

Stanley is a great performer, a former student of Manuel Barrueco, a graduate of Manhattan School of Music and an Albany recording artist. I've known him since the mid-80s and he has always been a relentless explorer of the guitar literature, turning up scores and composers that have, in turn, become major influences on me and others of his contemporaries.

Kucera is a great example. A remarkably original and inspired composer, he is not well known in this country and I would know nothing of him were it not for Stanley's research. Of Kucera's works, the birthday program will present a U.S. premiere, with a string orchestra conducted by Goucher's ensembles director Elisa Koehler, of the Concierto Imaginativo „Homenaje a Salvador Dalí” and the Maryland premiere of his solo Diario: Omaggio a Che Guevara. The program will also include work by Ernst Bacon, Brian Fenelly and Eric Sessler.

Stanley will be repeating elements of this program at the Composers Voice concert Nov. 29 at the Jan Hus Church in New York in the last week of November and I'll post information on that concert as it approaches.

--C.
www.theandofone.blogspot.com

Dave Stryker Organ Quartet

Jazz guitarist Dave Stryker is playing at Cecil's Jazz Club, 364 Valley Road in West Orange, Friday and Saturday this week, 9 to 1:30 p.m. What I know of him is mainly from press releases and his own, very thorough website. But I'm impressed with the recordings that I listened to there. Stryker has about 20 CDs out under his own name, a number of them on the European SteepleChase label. But he's also an distinguished sideman with a lengthy discography that includes Stanley Turrentine, Jack McDuff, and Kevin Mahogany.

I think the casual jazz listener will find a lot to like in Stryker's mellow intensity and tasteful solos. The more sophisticated will (hopefully) notice a compelling intellect at work, within a style that mixes mainstream and old-school fusion approaches.

Stryker was again voted a Rising Star in Downbeat's 2007 Critic's Poll. How established do you have to be to be pushed out of the running for "Rising Star"? What constitutes "rising"? Ah well, since we can find joy in simply listening to Stryker's music, maybe such silly categorizations don't really matter.

Here's a hot jam with his organ trio--Bobby Floyd, organ, Jonathan Higgins, drums--excerpted from a 2008 DVD.



The quartet appearing at Cecil's will include Stephen Riley, tenor sax,
Jared Gold, organ and Steve Williams, drums. Call Cecil's for more info at (973) 736-4800.

--C.