| Glowing Concert Review from Washington Post | |
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April 18, 2007 After Late Start, Guitarists Perform in Perfect Time Bad weather and bad driving directions made John Williams and John Etheridge 40 minutes late starting their two-guitar recital at George Mason University's Center for the Arts on Sunday. But bad playing? There wasn't a note of it. Williams and Etheridge are something of an odd couple of the guitar. Williams, a renowned classical guitarist, is fastidious and soft-spoken, with more subtlety in his playing. Etheridge is jazz-oriented, sprawling and ebullient, with more surface flash: He switches effortlessly between acoustic and electric guitar, often contorting his face dramatically while playing the latter, as if trying to squeeze more music out. Their program was, not surprisingly, eclectic. In solos, Etheridge favored blues and swing, and Williams's focus was folklike music from Venezuela and Paraguay. Together, the guitarists played works from Senegal, Mali and Cameroon in a distinct jazz fusion idiom -- although the arrangements did become repetitive, with Williams laying down riffs below and Etheridge bouncing, swinging and swaggering above. Standouts among the players' own compositions included Etheridge's "Strange Comforts," a quicksilver set of key and mood changes that Williams opened with arpeggios before settling into the background for Etheridge's flights of fancy; and Williams's "Extra Time," which started with Bach, metamorphosed into multiple cadenzas for Etheridge, then ventured into lyricism before a taut and intense conclusion. The title of the evening's last major piece -- and its demands on the players -- seemed to pull all the themes of the two-plus-hour-long concert together. It was Benjamin Verdery's "Peace, Love and Guitars." -- Mark J. Estren |
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| New Tour Dates and Website for Classical Guitarist John Williams | |
Check out John Williams new website at www.johnwilliamsguitar.com and visit the TOUR SECTION for new performance dates!![]() You can purchase his latest release "Places Between" on iTunes, Amazon. or visit the Sony Music Store. |
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In his first live recording, guitarist John Williams teams up with a guitar virtuoso from the jazz world – England’s John Etheridge – for a fresh take on the infinite variety of world music on Sony Classical’s JOHN WILLIAMS & JOHN ETHERIDGE: LIVE IN DUBLIN. The recording captures the entire set featuring Williams (playing a custom-made classical guitar) and Etheridge (playing a steel string instrument), recorded live on July 8, 2006, at the Dublin Guitar Festival in Ireland. JOHN WILLIAMS & JOHN ETHERIDGE: LIVE IN DUBLIN is now available in stores.
The collaboration of Williams and Etheridge continues in performance – they are currently on tour together in the U.S. and will continue through early 2007.
The roots of LIVE IN DUBLIN can be found in Williams’ two most recent Sony Classical albums – The Magic Box, on which he discovered the continu¬ing tradition of guitar music in Africa and Madagascar (and which also featured Etheridge), and El Diablo Suelto: Guitar Music of Venezuela. Four of the tracks on the new album are fresh treatments of material heard on The Magic Box, and it also features a live performance “El totumo” by the Venezuelan composer Benito Canonico (aka Cañonigos), which Williams recorded on El Diablo Suelto.
Williams and Etheridge comfortably weave a set that draws upon their mutual fascination with the musical bridges between the ethnic traditions of Madagascar, the countries of Africa’s west coast, and the Americas. From Cameroon’s “Sangara” to Billie Holiday’s “God Bless the Child,” they segue to the Paraguayan “La última canción” and the Venezuelan “El totumo,” then it’s over to the Cape Verde Islands for “Triangular Situations” and the Mali-Senegalese kora melodies of “Malinke Guitars,” before ultimately winding up this journey with the Guinean mandinka-based “Djandjon,” and the closing taste of Madagascar, “Mitopa.”
The program is introduced by Williams’ three-part “Extra Time” launched with “an extended and altered version of a well known Bach prelude,” his liner notes reveal. A specially commissioned suite composed (and personally annotated on the CD) by the American composer Benjamin Verdery brings the performance to its conclusion – the three-part, 16-minute “Peace, Love and Guitars,” which pays homage in its final movement to another guitar hero, Leo Kottke.
Buy | Places Between - John Williams & John Etheridge Live in Dublin
Release Date: October 17, 2006 Track listing for CD Longplay (700907) |
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Buy | Bach: The Four Lute Suites [Great Performances]
Release Date: August 01, 2006 Track listing for CD Longplay (678738) |
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Buy | The Ultimate Guitar Collection
Release Date: March 29, 2005 Track listing for CD Longplay (093959) |
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Buy | The Great Paraguayan - Solo Guitar Works by Barrios
Release Date: August 10, 2004 Track listing for CD Longplay (092611) |
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Buy | Rodrigo: Concierto de Aranjuez, Fantasía para un gentilhombre; Albeniz
Release Date: August 10, 2004 Track listing for CD Longplay (092610) |
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Buy | The Seville Concert [Expanded Edition]
Release Date: February 24, 2004 Track listing for CD Longplay (090409) |
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Buy | The Guitarist - Expanded Edition
Release Date: September 30, 2003 Track listing for CD Longplay (090399) |
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Buy | El Diablo Suelto
Release Date: September 09, 2003 Track listing for CD Longplay (090451) |
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Buy | The Ultimate Classical Christmas Album Of All Time
Release Date: October 01, 2002 Track listing for CD Longplay (087771) |
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Buy | John Williams Plays Bach
Release Date: August 27, 2002 Track listing for CD Longplay (089612) |
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Buy | Bach: Lute Suites, Vol. I
Release Date: August 06, 2002 Track listing for CD Longplay (089964) |
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Buy | The Magic Box
Release Date: April 16, 2002 Track listing for CD Longplay (089483) |
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Buy | Spanish Guitar Music
Release Date: January 29, 2002 Track listing for CD Longplay (089837) |
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