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Guitar week: Gitarrissima and Sean Shibe

Almost at the Christmas break and hectic as ever! This last week was a two-concerts week (with a Christmas party in the middle) and it was guitars all round.

First up, on 11th December, were Gitarrissima of Vienna at Skipton Music. The quintet (reduced to a quartet on Tuesday due to illness) performed A Christmas Celebration - seasonal music and a very jolly evening all round. The group perform on a mixture of concert guitars, an octave guitar and an acoustic bass guitar and the sound is remarkably rounded, not necessarily to be expected for reductions of orchestral pieces. Each set of pieces was introduced by a different member of the group. In a lot of ways, Gitarrissima reminded me of Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain with their clever arrangements of well-known pieces as well as musical excellence.

The programme included excerpts (arranged by the group) of Bizet's Carmen, Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake and The Nutcracker, all of which were performed very well but somehow the arrangements still felt a bit limited. Hoe Down from Aaron Copland's Rodeo was for me much better and rounded off the first half very well.

The second half I enjoyed much more - the arrangements and the performances. After The Nutcracker extracts, we were treated to African Suite - Bantu by Andrew York (very energetic, excellent!); Rhapsody Japan - Furusato by Shingo Fujii; Leo Weiner's Divertimento No. 1 Op. 20 - Fox Dance and Rachenitsa (Thracian Dances) by Petko Stainov. I really enjoyed the Fujii, Weiner and Stainov - felt like the performances really came alive.

To continue the party atmosphere, we were treated to a Christmas Surprise encore which was a medley of pieces including Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, It's Starting to Feel a Lot Like Christmas, Let it Snow, a few pieces I couldn't catch and finally Feliz Navidad.

Fast forward to Friday and the final lunchtime concert of the term at Leeds University School of Music. Sean Shibe has a lot of praise and awards for a still twenty-something, and it is obvious why. The concert started with Sean's own arrangements of Scottish Lute Manuscripts; he came onstage, sat down and started with no word to the audience, who were soon in rapt silence. The sound was soft and clear, very lute-like. Sean then briefly introduced the Scottish Lute repertoire and the folk and French influences, before performing a set of three English Lute pieces by John Dowland by way of contrast. These were almost rougher in timbre. The concert finished with JS Bach's Lute Suite in C minor BWV997.
 
I particularly wanted to go and see Sean Shibe because of this year's ukulele development - my other ukulele is a lute!- one of these. I am trying various lute and classical guitar pieces arranged for re-entrant ukulele. All this is making me want to practise! Maybe there will be time over the Christmas break...
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