In any concert listening to a single guitar can be a great experience but when you have four superb guitarists appearing at the same time then it's nothing short of miraculous.
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The Yass Music Club had just that experience in the latest of its subscriber series in the Memorial Hall last Saturday when Guitar Trek, comprising Tim Kain, Minh Le Hong, Bradley Kunda and Matt Withers playing guitars in ensemble to produce a most eloquent musical performance from a very well chosen program which gave it ample scope to demonstrate its skills and versatility.
This group has been performing for around 25 years from when noted guitarist, Tim Kain established it in 1987, when he had in mind to form a chamber music guitar ensemble comparable to a string quartet, inventing the guitar quartet medium to use classically constructed and different-sized guitars.
The group are now regarded as Australia's premier guitar quartet and has been wowing audiences throughout Australia as well as internationally playing not only the original four instruments but also a steel string Dobro and a 12-string guitar and using both nylon and metal stringing to extend the effects in their diverse program of music.
Their music ranged from a charming performance of the Waltz of the Flowers from The Nutcracker Suite by Tchaikovsky through to Antonio Montes' very original Llanura and the Spanish fire of Danzas Fantasticus by Joaquin Turina and on to include to several very beautiful studies by Australia's Nigel Westlake, including Winter in the Forgotten Valley, which had been specially commissioned by him for Guitar Trek, with financial assistance from the Federal government's Arts Funding Body.
The tour-de-force of the concert was Westlake's Six Fish comprising six short pieces designed to evoke images of sea creatures and in this they were very successful in creating sound images of diverse types of marine life from Guitar Fish (very appropriate) as well as Sunfish, Spangled Emperor and concluding with a scintillating piece called Flying Fish, which really captured the sense of these unique fish as they dive through the movement of the sea. The group gave a charming rendition of a Tango by Bizet as its encore and, to the satisfaction of the appreciative audience.
The next concert to complete this year's great subscription series is on on Saturday, 25th October with the dynamic Meg Corson. In December there will be a Benefit Concert at the beautiful Crisp Galleries.
Subscribers will also shortly receive details of the five concerts which will comprise our 2015 season beginning on February 7, with a blockbuster performance from The Idea of North and there will also be a choral performance from the Llewellyn Choir of First World War music in the week just before Anzac Day, a performance of Elizabethan Music in June and a trio in August before our final concert in October with the welcome return of pianist extraordinaire, Joe Chindamo in a duo with violinist Zoe Black.
As usual, the Berinba P&C did a wonderful job with the supper and the Music Club regards the employment of local groups such as Berinba, the Hospital Auxiliary and the Friends of Cooma Cottage as a means of financially assisting such groups in the excellent work that they do in supporting their own community activities.
The Hall was comfortably warmed but the ongoing problem of appropriate air conditioning and heating needs to be addressed as we continue to swelter in the hot months and struggle to hear the music in cold weather because of the noise of the heaters - and just remember that beautiful Hall was built just under one hundred years with no proper attempt since to set it up for the seasonal comfort of the members of the Yass community who use it.