MGS Guitarist Sept/Oct
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A Publication of the Minnesota Guitar Society • P.O. Box 14986 • Minneapolis, MN 55414 SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2007 VOL. 23 NO. 5 SundinSundin HallHall ConcertsConcerts AnAn ExcitingExciting NewNew SeasonSeason Begins!Begins! Lucas Harris baroque lute Saturday September Berta Rojas classical guitar Saturday October Also In This Issue News and Notes about OpenStage Local Artists concerts and more Minnesota Guitar Society Board of Directors Newsletter EDITOR OFFICERS: BOARD MEMBERS: Paul Hintz PRESIDENT Joe Haus Steve Kakos PRODUCTION Alan Norton VICE-PRESIDENT Joanne Backer i draw the line, inc. Annett Richter ARTISTIC DIRECTOR Joe Hagedorn David’s Print Shop Daniel Sturm DISTRIBUTION TREASURER Jim Campbell Kuan Teoh Todd Tipton MANAGING DIRECTOR Paul Hintz Todd Tipton Web Site Production SECRETARY Patrick Strother Brent Weaver Amy Lytton <http://www.mnguitar.org> Minnesota Guitar Society The Minnesota Guitar Society concert season is co-sponsored by Mission Statement Sundin Hall. This activity is made To promote the guitar, in all its stylistic and cultural diversity, possible in part by a grant from the through our newsletter and through our sponsorship of Minnesota State Arts Board, through public forums, concerts, and workshops. an appropriation by the Minnesota State Legislature and a grant from To commission new music and to aid in its the National Endowment for the promotion, publication, and recording. Arts. Matching funds have been To serve as an educational and social link between amateur and provided by General Mills, AT&T, professional guitarists and the community. and Ameriprise Financial. To promote and help create opportunities for Minnesota guitarists and players of related instruments. To reserve tickets for any Sundin Hall concert, call our phone line at 612-677-1151 and leave a message. As a member of the Minnesota Guitar Society, you receive ticket discounts on all MGS-sponsored events, a year’s subscription to the Guitarist and the opportunity to place free classifieds in each issue. To join the Minnesota Guitar Society, please fill out the information on this coupon and mail it to: Minnesota Guitar Society, P.O. Box 14986, Minneapolis, MN 55414 ❐ Student $15 ❐ Family $30 ❐ Sponsor $200 - $499 ❐ Regular $25 ❐ Patron $50 - $199 ❐ Benefactor $500 + ❐ Renewing ❐ New Member NAME __________________________________________________________ ADDRESS _______________________________________________________ CITY ________________________ ST ______________ ZIP _________ 2 guitarist Concert Spotlight: Lucas Harris Lucas Harris: Rising Star of the Lute by Annett Richter n Saturday, September 29th, the Minnesota Guitar Hagen’s music has interested me a lot since I performed Society will feature Lucas Harris from Toronto, a one of his lute concertos a couple of years ago on my CBC Oyoung, up-and-coming lutenist, for the opening radio recital (the lute soloist is accompanied by a muted concert of our 2007–08 Sundin Hall season. We are excited to string quartet). Hagen’s compositions are the closest ana- be bringing Harris here for the first time, and contacted him logue we have in the lute/guitar world to the spooky clavi- this summer by email to learn more about his background chord sonatas of C. P. E. Bach—it’s really from that bizarre and plans for the concert. pre-classical period, the period of the lute’s final swan song before its decline. Many people think the lute was already Interview with Lucas Harris long gone by that point. AR: Lucas, tell us about the repertoire and lute you will play AR: It is often the case that lutenists make their start in the on September 29th. plucky world through the guitar. Was this true for you, and if LH: I’ll be bringing one of my two Baroque lutes, a “bass so, when and how did you get to the lute? And who were rider” style thirteen-course lute by Michael Schreiner (after your teachers? Hans Frei), and presenting a mostly or all German eighteenth- LH: I’m absolutely a guitarist at heart. I played equal century program. The plan at the moment is to play some or amounts of jazz and classical guitar throughout my musi- all of a late sonata by Silvius Leopold Weiss, a set of pieces by cally formative teen years (and would continue both even David Kellner (ending with his extended Chaconne in A now if I had the time). I started to play the lute during my major), and a sonata by Bernard Joachim Hagen. If time undergraduate years at Pomona College, without a teacher at permits, I may add some other short works, maybe some first (though my classical guitar teacher Jack Sanders was French lute pieces by Jacques Gallot. I’m really enthusiastic very supportive). After Pomona, I finally got some regular about the concert and honored to have the opportunity. lessons for a year in Milan, Italy, with Paul Beier (I was one of AR: This sounds like a very exciting evening of music by the first scholars of the Marco Fodella Foundation, which is some of the most prolific lutenists of the High Baroque. What run by the parents of a talented young Italian lutenist who drew you to these composers? tragically died at age 26). I then studied for a year with two LH: I have loved Weiss and Kellner since hearing them of the finest continuo players anywhere at the Hochschule in transcribed for classical guitar as a teenager (I’m thinking of a Bremen, Germany—lutenist Stephen Stubbs and early recording I used to have of Bach/Kellner transcriptions by harpist Andrew Lawrence King. I moved back to the U.S. the German guitarist Hubert Käppel and a Weiss recording after that and have been having periodic lessons with guitar/ by Eliot Fisk). There is so much sophistication and invention lute guru Pat O’Brien in New York for the past eight years. I in how these two composers use the instrument, and yet it all still go to see Pat whenever I can get to New York in spite of fits under the fingers in such a natural and satisfying way. how much it humbles me. I wish that more professional musicians continued to take lessons. How can we keep improving if we no longer get any external analysis of our playing? AR: Yes, indeed, the learning process is indefinite for each of 2007-2008 Sundin Hall Season us, regardless of what we play. Sat. Sept. 29th, Lucas Harris Lucas Harris continued on p. 4 Sat. Oct. 27th, Berta Rojas Fri. Nov. 16th, Michael Chapdelaine Lucas Harris Masterclass Co-sponsored by the Twin Cities Lute Cooperative Fri. Dec. 7th, Flamenco Guitarathon and the Minnesota Guitar Society Fri. Jan. 18th, Lily Afshar Sunday, Sept. 30th, 2 to 4 pm Sat. Feb. 23th, Le Trio Joubran Olivet Congregational Church, Fri. Mar. 14th, Thomas Viloteau 1850 Iglehart Ave., St. Paul For lutenists or guitarists (you are welcome Sat. April 5th, Paulo Bellinati & to play modern instruments) Monica Salmaso Soloists, duos, ensembles, all welcome Sat. May 17th, Classical Guitarathon $40.00 for performers; suggested donation $10.00 for auditors For tickets, call (612) 677-1151. Limit of 4 performers To register or for more information, call 651-699-1808. september / october 3 Lucas Harris Interview Harris, continued from p. 3 Handel, and so on. When I also came to understand that continuo playing was not so much about filling in missing You are very active as both a solo lutenist and a continuo information that the composer hadn’t bothered to specify player in early music ensembles and distinguished Baroque but rather about improvising a multicolored accompani- orchestras such as Tafelmusik. Both venues are demanding ment inspired by the rhetoric of the music and the interpreta- on practice time. How do you divide your time between the tion of the soloist, I was hooked. It completely changed my two? Does your performance schedule more or less set those whole concept of music (not only Baroque!). priorities or do you maintain both types of repertoire on a There were a lot of lutenists whose recordings and coach- continuous basis? ing got me going in the first year or two: Nigel North LH: To make sure I get enough time at home, I try to get my (especially his continuo instruction book and his recording Tafelmusik and Toronto Consort dates set for the year, and of Corelli’s op. 5 with Monica Huggett), Stephen Stubbs then fit other engagements in between. Often I’m lucky and (especially the early recordings of his group Tragicomedia), end up with a healthy mix of solo playing, chamber music, Paul O’Dette, and Scott Pauley (a fellow Pomona graduate). orchestral and opera gigs, teaching and directing. AR: Renaissance lute, Baroque lute, Renaissance guitar, To be really truthful, I think that in the last couple of years I Baroque guitar, archlute, and theorbo—all of those are have finally arrived at a point where I don’t have to practice plucked instruments in your extremely versatile bag of tricks my continuo parts too much, at least not real practicing with (any I forgot?). Which instruments do you use for continuo a lute in my hands. My preparation time is often better spent playing and how do the repertoire and your knowledge of doing other things such as putting extra figures into the historically informed performance practice dictate whether music, organizing page turns, reading the texts and transla- you play, for example, a theorbo, an archlute, or a Baroque tions if it is vocal music, making sure the instrument I’m guitar? And what is your secret in keeping up with practic- going to use has good strings and frets and is set up well. ing them all? Since I get to invent my own part, I often need the inspiration LH: There are just a couple more instruments to add: I also of being with the whole ensemble anyway to know how I play the wire-strung bandora and English cittern a little bit.