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| New York Guitar Festival Flushing Town Hall and The New York Guitar Festival present two evenings of performances that combine internationally acclaimed guitarists, original scores commissioned by the Festival, and silent films from China and Japan in the 1920s and 1930s. Over the course of its six years, the New York Guitar Festival has become one of the most eagerly anticipated events of the city's concert season. *On Saturday January 21st, guitarist and composer Leni Stern will perform a new score she composed for The Goddess (Shen Nu, 1934), a classic of Chinese silent film that stars Ruan LingYu. Stern is a five-time winner of Gibson's Best Female Jazz Guitarist. Her widely acclaimed When Evening Falls (2004) drew inspiration from the music of Kenya, India, Louisiana, Palestine, and the East Village. LA Weekly calls Stern “one of the world's most fully realized songwriters and guitarists.” One short will precede the feature-the surviving reel of the adventure story Lotus Blossom (1921). The film will be accompanied by guitarist Brandon Ross and cellist Michelle Kinney, performing a new composition of Ross's. A versatile musician, Ross has worked with a wide range of performers from popular stars such as Meshell Ndegeocello, Graham Haynes, Arrested Development and Cassandra Wilson. * On Saturday January 28th, guitarist and composer Alex de Grassi will perform an original score he composed for A Story of Floating Weeds (Ukigusa Monogatari, 1934) by the world-renowned Japanese director Yasujiro Ozu. De Grassi is regarded as one of the world's top fingerstyle, steel-string acoustic guitarists. De Grassi has the ability to weave together melody, counter-melody, bass, harmony, rhythm, and cross-rhythms, ultimately creating a highly orchestrated sound from a solo guitar. In addition to his custom six-string, de Grassi will play a few one-of-a-kind guitars, including a 39-string ”Flying Dream” instrument that incorporates sympathetic strings (strings that resonate not by being plucked or bowed, but by their proximity to other strings) and extended bass and treble harp strings. A short will precede the feature-excerpts from Teinosuke Kinugasa's A Page of Madness (Kurutta Ippeiji, 1926) will be screened accompanied by an improvisation by guitarists Henry Kaiser and Loren Connors. write your comments about the article :: © 2006 Jazz News :: home page |