Guitar trio blends new with ancient

Victoria Guitar Trio performs Sunday at St. Mary the Virgin in Oak Bay

Victoria Guitar Trio performs Sunday at 2:30 p.m. at St. Mary the Virgin, 1701 Elgin Rd.

Victoria Guitar Trio performs Sunday at 2:30 p.m. at St. Mary the Virgin, 1701 Elgin Rd.

Adrian Verdejo, Bradford Werner and Michael Dias will perform a blend of European Renaissance music arranged for plucked strings and lyrical 20th/21st century works by West Coast composers.

Oak Bay Music brings Victoria Guitar Trio to St. Mary’s this weekend for a blend of early and new music.

“We are playing some of the oldest published lute trios arranged for guitars, and some of the newest pieces for three guitars” said Dias. “Esthetically, the pieces fit beautifully. Even though there’s a huge gap in time between some of the earliest music written for plucked instruments and the latest, the music is actually quite similar in most cases.”

For the early repertoire the trio uses the terz guitar as well as a guitalele, analogous to the different lute sizes used in the 15th and 16th century. This instrumentation is also used for an arrangement of “Mille Regretz” which will feature Oak Bay Music artistic director Erik Abbink on soprano saxophone. The modern works interspersed into Sunday’s program are pieces by well-known B.C. composers Jordan Nobles, Rodney Sharman, Scott Godin and Benton Roark.

Victoria Guitar Trio performs Sunday at 2:30 p.m. at St. Mary the Virgin, 1701 Elgin Rd.  Advance tickets ($20/$15/$10) are available at Ivy’s Books and online. Tickets are also available at the door.

Oak Bay Music provides live audio casts for those unable to get out of the house or only have time to catch some of the concert. Visit oakbaymusic.ca to learn more.

 

cvanreeuwyk@oakbaynews.com

 

 

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