They blew through Germany and Luxembourg in March. In 2001, the quartet gave more than 60 concerts, in venues that included Spain’s Aranjuez Palace, the Hollywood Bowl and Wolftrap.
Last fall, winding up an 18-city East Coast tour, the group went into recording sessions to produce Aires, its 10th release (if you don’t count a long-out-of-print LP from the 1980s). In its 22nd year, the LAGQ has never been more original, more successful or more in demand. It’s hard to find a reviewer who isn’t wowed by this group. “However it helps you to think about the Los Angeles Guitar Quartet, keep the emphasis on superlatives for its unrivaled joy, technical élan and questing spirits.” “Any group whose repertoire ranges from Bach to Falla to Count Basie to Led Zeppelin is tough to label.”Įven in its hometown, the recording-arts capital where eclecticism is the norm, the LAGQ elicits puzzled approbation: “The world’s hottest classical ensemble or its tightest pop band?” wondered a Los Angeles Times critic. “Is the Los Angeles Guitar Quartet classical or pop?” mused the St. “Who knew that four guitars could sound like a baroque ensemble or a gamelan orchestra?” marveled the Washington Post. Louis Post Dispatch critic, then solved his own riddle: “When it is given by the eclectic and whimsical musicians who form the Los Angeles Guitar Quartet.” “When is a guitar concert not a guitar concert?” asked a St. The LAGQ has a curious effect on audiences and critics: one of pleasurable confusion. Imagine guitars simulating “world” instruments like an African thumb piano, a Balinese gong or a Japanese koto imagine 24 nylon strings masquerading as a harpsichord continuo or Samba band imagine four white guys thumping out Afro-Cuban, Macedonian, Native American and Brazilian rhythms, transforming their fine rosewood instruments into congas, claves, palitos and all manner of drums. Sousa rolls out Scottish reels and Klezmer dances alongside Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker Suite and a Praetorius gavotte gives you a straight-ahead transcription of Telemann’s Concerto in D for four violins, but goes all bossa-bluegrassy with Pachelbel’s “Loose” Canon pays equal homage to Aaron Copland and Led Zeppelin. If you’ve never heard them, imagine a classical group that mixes up J.S. Its style is rebelliously relaxed, amiably iconoclastic, tongue-in-cheek, low-key So Cal. Like the city whose name it bears, the Los Angeles Guitar Quartet is a gumbo of creative juices, a paella of wildly diverse tastes and influences. There’s something so cosmically right about one of the world’s premier classical guitar ensembles – a maverick in redefining the guitar’s voice and literature – springing from such a mish-mosh.
And there was the child prodigy who, though trained by a Segovia disciple, had contemplated joining the Marines and might well have hung up his guitar if the hockey coach had given him a glimmer of encouragement.
Sprung from unmusical families, they entered USC’s guitar program not exactly steeped in the classics: One was a fingerpickin’ Chet Atkins wannabe who’d only recently mastered note-reading another fantasized about playing lead guitar for Yes. They weren’t native Southlanders (what trend-setting Angeleno ever is?). No particular thought went into the name – it happened to be their home address. The god of serendipity was beaming when, 20 years ago, four USC guitar students dubbed themselves the Los Angeles Guitar Quartet.
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