Adelaide Guitar Festival review: Consonance
From Aleksandr Tsiboulski performing new work by Anne Cawrse, to an ‘orchestra’ of 50 guitars covering Boney M, the Adelaide Guitar Festival’s annual showcase offered an consumate celebration of the six-string.
The Adelaide Guitar Festival is around again, swelling the city’s live music scene with four weeks of plucking and grooving. Kicking off later than usual and running longer in this twelfth iteration, it build son its ever-popular ‘Guitars in Bars’ gigs in and around the pubs of Adelaide and throws in a couple of big shows too. One was multi-ARIA award winning artist Lior with Lau Noah, the young Spanish vocalist-guitarist of growing fame.
The other, a showcase type concert called ‘Consonance’, held particular interest for its highly varied line-up. Lior slipped in to also take part in this, and he was backed by what undoubtedly counts as the festival’s biggest creation, the Adelaide Guitar Festival Orchestra. Each year, dozens of young and not-so-young musicians assemble for this community-based project; and the sight of 50 guitars crammed into Elder Hall is something to behold.
For his part, Lior was unphased by this most unusual of backing bands, and indeed he gave his inspired best. While maintaining his typically casual manner, he seemed to have been lifted by the massed guitars, playing together in a shimmering cloud of sound. He sang just two of his songs, ‘Real Love’ and ‘Daniel’, but they floated with a dreamy introspection that was enhanced by all the delicate plucking behind him.
Lior’s songwriting is masterful, and it makes good use of the upper range in which his voice excels. One wished there could be more. Yet this Melbourne-based singer’s cameo appearance made a hit out of the Adelaide Guitar Festival Orchestra’s bracket; and there were no flies on its separate pieces either.
Beginning with the easy charm of Caetabi Zama’s ‘Brazilian Summer’ and finishing with Boney M’s up-tempo ‘Rasputin’, these were all well arranged by AGFO’s charismatic conductor, Paul Svoboda. He also contributed two songs of his own, ‘Still Going Strong’ and ‘Sapphire Beach’, both of which hit the mark with their tunefulness and fine construction.
One couldn’t stop admiring just how well this orchestra plays under his direction: the youngest was 10, the oldest 79, and all were well coached up by Svoboda for the first part of this concert following a week of intensive training in the festival’s Winter School in July.
Making his return to Adelaide was the outstanding classical guitarist Aleksandr Tsiboulski, first in partnership with violinist Elizabeth Layton and then playing solo in a new piece by Anne Cawrse. Paganini’s ‘Cantabile’ and Arvo Pärt’s ‘Fratres’ were a real eye-opener, not only for the precision of their duet playing but also Layton’s wonderful virtuosity. The Paganini was lavishly expressive and the Pärt extraordinary for its fine arpeggio work, which she executed at great speed over a trance-like pulse from Tsiboulski.
Then it was over to Tsiboulski in Cawrse’s ‘Three Hildegard Fantasies’. Commissioned for this year’s festival, these are substantial and important additions to the guitar repertoire that draw on motivic and melodic ideas from plainchant from the twelfth-century abbess and spiritual healer, Hildegard von Bingen.
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In each fantasy, Cawrse weaves elaborate structures that make full use of classical guitar technique and take the listener into another world. Perfectionist in his tuning and tonal control, Tsiboulski transported all ears to that world with carefully rolled chords and sensuously shaped melody. His consummate musicianship was a highlight in this concert.
No showcase event would be complete without the festival’s artistic director, Slava Grigoryan. An absolute guitar supremo, he and his cellist partner Sharon Grigoryan make a powerhouse musical couple, and they sent people out on a high in their final bracket.
Mario Laginha’s jazzy ‘Tanto Espaço’ made a fitting introduction, with the two instruments elegantly swapping melodic and accompanying roles. Next came Slava’s own arrangement of J.S. Bach’s Concerto in D minor, BWV 974, itself being an arrangement of an oboe concerto by the Italian Baroque composer Marcello. The middle movement of this concerto was the best for its sonorous melody and chordal underscoring – what a highly effective reworking it proved to be for this particular combination of instruments.
Two cheery pieces capped off this program. Joy aplenty came from Anne Cawrse’s ‘Grounded’, written as a release from the gloom of the 2021 COVID lockdowns, and from American Mark Summer’s lively jazz-fusion song ‘Julie-O’. Great playing and swinging energy made these a special treat.
Consonance was performed at Elder Hall on Sunday September 14. Adelaide Guitar Festival continues until October 12.