Reviewed by Barry Lenny, Sunday 12th August 2018.
How do you celebrate your birthday when you are a guitar teacher and conductor? Well, if you are Doctor Paul Svoboda, you open the
Festival Finale at the Adelaide Guitar Festival by conducting the Adelaide Guitar Festival Orchestra, AGFO, a guitar ensemble with 96 players. You then top it off by closing the evening conducting your own 22-member group, the Aurora Guitar Ensemble. Dr. Svoboda and his ensemble are familiar and extremely popular participants at the Festival, and the applause following every number during their appearance this evening attested to their fact that they are more than welcome here, anytime.
The Adelaide Guitar Festival Orchestra played a selection of works, all unannounced, but including a couple of familiar tunes,
Joni Mitchell's
Both Sides, Now, and
The Joker, from the
Anthony Newley and
Leslie Bricusse musical, The Roar of the Greasepaint - the Smell of the Crowd, recorded by many but made famous by
Shirley Bassey. Such a huge orchestra, of course, produced an impressive sound, and certainly thrilled the audience, many of whom were no doubt, parents, friends, and relatives of the performers.
The University of Adelaide Guitar Ensemble then played two pieces, the first in three movements and the second, Party in a Bag, a single movement work by one of the members of the ensemble. The title of the first was not given and both composers were only referred to by their first names, Sebastian and James. As one would expect of students at this level, the performances were of an extremely high standard, and both works were very well received by the audience.
The inappropriateness of the MC for the evening, Julia Zamira, was obvious in her total ignorance of fine music, and inability to read her clipboard, or count movements. She clumsily interrupted the ensemble at the end of the first piece, apparently thinking that it was the second piece, and that they had finished playing their set. I watch very little television so know nothing about her performances, but I was told that she is a stand-up comedienne and appears in a couple of lowbrow shows on our now "dumbed down" ABC. I found her excruciatingly unfunny, overly loud, and her inane comments and interview questions made me cringe. This is the sort of job that somebody like Graham Abbot, an informed and informative expert in fine music, would have done so well.
Chrystian Dozza also appeared in the first half of the concert with some very sensitive playing on a couple of contrasting pieces, leaving us wanting more from him, which is as it should be.
The Grigoryan Brothers, Leonard and Slava, the Artistic Director of the Festival, and the Beijing Guitar Duo, Meng Su and Yameng Wang, combined to form a quartet, honouring the composer, Phillip Houghton, who died in September 2017, by playing his three-movement work,
Opals: Black Opal, Water Opal, and White Opal. There are so many ideas captured in these three short movements, and the quartet gave an exemplary performance of the work. Both duos are highly respected and much loved and, together, they were a highlight of this year's Festival.
Following the interval, Derek Gripper made his only appearance during this Festival. Although classically trained and having begun his career playing the repertoire expected of such a player, he then branched out into a much wider range of music, particularly that of West Africa. Not only is he a marvellous guitarist, with numerous fascinating works at this fingertips, but he also has a great sense of humour and offered some extremely witty anecdotes between his pieces. A particularly funny tale was of his painstaking efforts to analyse a tune that he had heard played on the Kora by Toumani Diabaté and, phrase by agonising phrase, write an adaptation for guitar, only to be later informed by Diabaté that it was originally a guitar tune that had been adapted for Kora. The Kora, by the way, is a West African instrument with 21 strings, with a huge calabash gourd covered in cow skin as a resonator, a cross between a lute and a harp. Gripper was a definite hit with the audience.
The Brisbane based Aurora Guitar Ensemble, under Doctor Svoboda, closed the afternoon with a selection of works, including two based on Irish folk melodies,
Metamorphosis of Mick Maguire, derived from Mick Maguire, a song recorded by the Clancy Brothers and
Tommy Makem, as well as by The
Irish Rovers, and the air,
Green Glens of Gweedore, as well as
Aurora, the signature piece for which the group is named.
Svoboda must surely be the most enthusiastic and flamboyant conductor around. He does not merely conduct his ensemble; he dances, jumps, occasionally plays congas, and wears the biggest smile in the auditorium. There is no question that he loves every second of his job, and that spreads to all of his musicians and the audience alike. There could not have been a better ending to this year's Festival.
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