This Saturday, October 30th at 8:00pm, at Precious Blood Church at 200 Kenny Street, the Winnipeg Classical Guitar Society in conjunction with Prairie Debut will feature the Cicchillitti-Cowan Guitar Duo in a program that consists of the music of Debussy, Tailleferre, Ravel, Mompou and others.
The Cicchillitti-Cowan duo consists of two internationally award winning guitarists. Adam Cicchillitti and Steve Cowen. The music on this Saturday night’s program will consist of music that has been arranged by the duo for two guitars.
The Cicchillitti-Cowan Duo has been together for six years and is the result of a close friendship and a true love of the classical guitar. As Steve Cowan states, “Adam and I were crossing paths at guitar festivals. We were pretty much at the same level, we were the same age, we talked about the solo repertoire we had learned in our studies, and we had pretty much chose all the same pieces which meant that we had very similar musical tastes and interests… we pretty much right away had the chemistry and started to grow from there.”
The duo has since gone on to record two amazing CDs on the Analetka record label; one that features music from the first half of the 20th century, and one that features Canadian compositions for guitar duo.
https://www.analekta.com/en/artists/adam-cicchillitti/
This concert is truly a collaborative effort made possible by The Winnipeg Classical Guitar Society, Prairie Debut and the Cicchillitti-Cowan Duo.
The duo had a number of concerts that they were scheduled to perform across the prairies in conjunction with Prairie Debut pre-pandemic, but once the pandemic hit all of the performance opportunities were cancelled.
Now that in person concerts are again a possibility, the duo mentioned that they had wanted to do a concert in Winnipeg with The Winnipeg Classical Guitar Society. The WCGS got in touch with Prairie Debut, and these two wonderful organizations took care of the rest of the of the concert planning.
Saturday night’s program will be made up of mostly French compositions that were not originally written for guitar, but have been arranged by the Cicchillitti-Cowan Duo. Compositions from such composers as Debussy, Tailleferre, and Ravel will be performed, but also compositions by the Spanish born, French settled composer Federico Mompou, and also a work by Canadian composer Harry Stafylakis.
When it comes to their arrangements of keyboard and harp music for two guitars, there are many elements that the duo needed to take into account. Registers, the number of notes being played at any given moment and musical keys need to be taken into account. Some of the music was arranged in different keys than the original works by the duo, so that the music could written and performed more idiomatically for the guitar. There are also some decisions that need to be made in regards to textures. As Adam Cicchillitti says, “When you are playing a piano arrangement, on guitar… because our fingers are always crossing over each other, and getting in the way of each other we can’t do everything so we have to make decisions about what is absolutely essential, and what can be removed.”
The arrangements that the duo have written are amazingly effective and give new life and new sonorities to these masterworks by these composers. Much of the repertoire on Saturday’s night’s concert will consist of music that is from their album “Intimate Impressions.”
This is a concert not to be missed. The musicianship and technical ability of these two great Canadian classical guitarists will be sure to entertain and engage you. This is going to be a truly special concert!
The concert takes place this Saturday, October 30th at 8:00pm at Precious Blood Church at 200 Kenny Street. COVID protocols will be observed, with proof of vaccination and the wearing of masks being required of all attendees.
For More information and to buy tickets online click here:
To see Chris Wolf’s Conversation with the Cicchillitti-Cowan Duo Click here
Fri, Apr 26, 5:07 PM
Transport, Full-time
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