Café Concert: Dublin Guitar Quartet

10/21/14 • 12 min

The four members of the Dublin Guitar Quartet do not specialize in bouncy jigs and reels. Nor do they play in Guinness-soaked pubs. But while the ensemble is certainly connected to its Irish heritage, its repertoire goes further afield, to minimalist and post-minimalist composers including Philip Glass, Arvo Part and Michael Nyman, as well as modern masters like Igor Stravinsky and György Ligeti.

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Café Concert: Pablo Villegas

The classical guitarist Pablo Villegas has made his home in New York City for a decade, but his performances have a strong sense of his roots in La Rioja, a region in the north of Spain celebrated for its complex red wines as well as its earthy, indigenous folk music. That includes the Spanish Jota, a folk dance that is normally played with mandolins and guitars, singers and dancers.

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Café Concert: Mivos Quartet

Bach's austerely beautiful Art of Fugue has long fascinated musicians who have a taste for the modern and esoteric. The piece, left incomplete at the composer's death, reduced complex counterpoint to its bare essentials – so much that the composer didn't even indicate the instrument (or instruments) for which it was composed.