TCGS Members' Concert: 9/28/96 St. Andrews Episcopal Church, 1004 Graydon Ave, Norfolk.

The members' concert is one of my favorites. The artistic level is perhaps a bit lower than at our mainline concerts, but for that they let me play :-) We do it cabaret style, with liberal helpings of wine to go with the food. After a bit, everyone sounds pretty good! Informal as it is, I can't tell you exactly what was played. The program I have says who played (although this was also subject to last minute changes). Per the program in hand, the following people played solos: Dan Cudney, Sam Dorsey, Charles Barron, Jake Lessard, Joshua Lessard, Chris Basford and Steve Jolemar. In between, the TCGS Guitar Orchestra played. Members of the orchestra present that night were: Charles Barron, requinto; Chris Basford, guitar; Dan Cudney, guitar; Sam Dorsey, requinto and baja; Steve Jolemar, requinto; Tony Pezella, guitar; Ken Pfeifer, requinto; David Wolverton, baja. The picture above is of the orchestra. Sorry, the light was bad, and some idiot (that would be me) forgot to set the 'low light' switch on the cam-corder.

The Cavalier Consort: 11/2/96 Williamsburg Regional Library

The Cavalier Consort has been delighting Virginia audiences since 1994 with their performances of vocal and instrumental music of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. In that time period, 'consort' referred to two or more instruments played together. This is a mixed consort, blending instruments from different families. Headed by Michael Murphy, a member of the TCGS and a fine guitarist, though he plays lute and baroque guitar with this group. Other members are Charles Hillen (recorders), Diana Kemp (baroque violin, recorders), Linda Murphy (cittern, baroque guitar), Deborah Ogan (viola da gamba, recorders) and Jay Taylor (tenor). That would seem to add up to a lot more instruments than members!

Ignacio Rodes: 11/15/96 Virginia Beach Center for the Arts; 11/16/96 Williamsburg Regional Library

In 1983, Ignacio Rodes became the youngest guitarist ever to win the coveted Andrés Segovia Prize (Palma de Mallorca). He has also won first prize at four other international guitar competitions, including the Francisco Tarrega (Benicasim, 1985) and Ramirez (1981).

Since then, Rodes has been playing the the world's great concert halls, including Wigmore Hall in London, Alte Oper in Frankfurt, Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center, New York, and major venues in Madrid, Warsaw and Mexico. He has been invited to perform at international festivals in Germany, Great Britain, Ireland, Italy, Belgium, Greece, Hungary and Chile, and has conducted many Master Classes.

Rodes has recorded two CDs which include three guitar concertos (Villa Lobos, Halffter and Guinjoan - dedicated to Rodes) accompanied by the English Chamber Orchestra, and four sonatas for guitar solo (Espla, Brouwer, Bardwell and Ginastera). At the present time, Ignacio Rodes lives in New Haven, Connecticut.

M. Rodes also presented a master class on 11/17/96 at Old Dominion University, Norfolk.

Timothy Olbrych: 1/17/97 Chrysler Museum Theater

Timothy Olbrych has appeared throughout the East Coast in both solo and chamber music settings including Merkin Hall, Club 54 and Club A in New York City, University of Connecticut - Storrs, University of Massachusetts, the College of William and Mary in Virginia, Virginia Commonwealth University, Virginia Fine Arts Museum and the Tidewater and Richmond Guitar Societies. His TV and radio appearances include WGGB-TV, Springfield, MA, and WHRO-TV, WAVY-TV, WTAR-TV, WHRO-FM and WGH-FM in Virginia. He is the founder and past president of the Tidewater Classical Guitar Society, one of the most active and prominent guitar societies in the U.S.

Timothy Olbrych has degrees in Music Education and Guitar Performance from Hartt School of Music, and a Master of Music from Virginia Commonwealth University. Mr. Olbrych has studied guitar with Richard Provost, Alice Artzt, Jesus Silva and Gordon Crosskey, and has performed in master classes with Alice Artzt, Oscar Ghiglia, David Russell, Toyohiko Satoh, Michael Lorimer, Carlos Barbosa-Lima and Jesus Silva. He is currently on the artist faculty of the College of William and Mary, and resides in Williamsburg Virginia.

Eleftheria Kotzia: 2/14/97 Chrysler Museum Theater

Eleftheria Kotzia was born in Greece and studied the guitar at the National Conservatory in Athens, the Conservatoire National Supérieure in Paris and at the Guildhall School of Music in London. She has toured regularly in Europe, North Africa, Canada, the United States, Australia and the Far East, and performed at many of the greatest international festivals, including the 10th Anniversary Series of the D'Addario Foundation in the USA, the Festival Estival in Paris, the Tavener Festival in the Athens Concert Hall, the Segovia Celebrations in Spain, the American Guitar Festival (GFA) in USA (where she was a winner), as well as the Norfolk and Norwich Festivals.

In 1989, Eleftheria's first recording - "The Blue Guitar" - featuring the premiere recording of Sir Michael Tippett's Sonata, achieved world wide acclaim and was selected by Gramophone Magazine as a "Critic's Choice Recording of the Year". She is the winner of the 6th international Guitar Competition in Milan in 1977 and the "Ville de Juvisy" in France in 1982.

Hopkinson Smith: 3/6/97 Williamsburg Regional Library; 3/7/97 Chrysler Museum Theater

Hopkinson Smith is a leading personality in the field of early music and one of the world's great lutenists. Presently living in Switzerland where he teaches at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis, Smith graduated from Harvard with Honors in music in 1972 and studied early plucked instruments with Emilio Pujol in Catalonia and Eugen Dombois in Switzerland. He has performed, given master classes and appeared in festivals throughout Europe and in the Americas, has participated in more than forty recordings of ensemble music and made nineteen recordings as a soloist. These have won numerous awards, including six "Diapasons d'Or" and a "Grand Prix de Disque" for his Astrée double CD of Bach lute works.

Antigoni Goni: 4/4/97 Virginia Beach Contemporary Arts Center; 4/5/97 Williamsburg Regional Library

Antigoni Goni was born in Athens, Greece in 1969. A winner of the International Competition in Cuba in 1988, she was awarded the special prize of "best interpretation in Latin American music". In 1990 she won first prize in the Julian Bream competition at the Royal Academy in London, and in 1996, won the Guitar Foundation of America competition.

She began her studies at the National Conservatory of Athens, and received her Soloist Diploma in 1989. She was awarded a British Council Scholarship to study with John Mills at the Royal Academy of Music in London, and has also studied in Master Classes with Julian Bream, John Williams, Leo Brouwer and Manuel Barrueco. She was (at this writing) completing her Masters at the Julliard School of Music in NYC.

Appearing here as the 1996 GFA winner, she thoroughly impressed one and all in Tidewater Virginia.

Inti-Illimani: 5/8/97 Norfolk Botanical Gardens

Originally from Santiago, Chile, Inti-Illimani lived 15 years of their artistic life in exile. The foolishness and uselessness of forcing them to live in exile has been demonstrated by the warmth with which they were received by their fellow Chileans on their return from Italy in 1988, converting Inti-Illimani into a creative legacy of the country.
Performing on more than 30 wind, string and percussion instruments, Inti-Illimani has toured Europe, the United States, Canada, Japan, Australia and Central and South America. They have worked with such artists as Pete Seeger, George Grassens, Mikis Theodorakis, Mercedes Sosa, John Williams, Paco Peña, and Roberto De Simone.
No published program was available for this concert. Rather, the group announced pieces chosen from their repertoire as they went along. You might want to look for the following releases:

PROGRAM

1979 Gracias a la Vida (Thanks to Life)
1980 Inti-Illimani en Directo (Inti-Illiamni LIve)
1981 Palimpsesto
1982 El Vuelo del Condor (Flight of the Condor)
1984 Imagination
1986 De Canto y Baile (From Song and Dance)
1987 Fragmento de un Sueño (Fragments of a Dream)
1990 Leyenda (Legend)
1993 Andadas (Wanderings)
1996 Ariegaré la Piel (I Will Risk My Skin)