Los Angeles Guitar Quartet concerts are full of surprises

Ross Raihala, The Olympian

Originally published Friday, April 5, 2002

How many classical acts can boast a rave review from a magazine usually concerned with the likes of Pete Townshend, Lenny Kravitz and Joe Satriani?

The Los Angeles Guitar Quartet, for one.

According to Guitar Player magazine: "If you haven't heard a classical guitar quartet before, this one won't just show you what you've been missing. They'll blow you away!"

The Los Angeles Guitar Quartet hopes to do just that when they perform Sunday in downtown Olympia.

In the years since forming as a student ensemble at the University of California, Los Angeles, in 1980, Bill Kanengiser, Scott Tennant, John Dearman and Andrew York have dabbled in a variety of genres.

As the Los Angeles Times put it: "The world's hottest classical ensemble or its tightest pop band? However it helps you to think about the Los Angeles Guitar Quartet, keep the emphasis on superlatives for its unrivaled joy, technical elan and questing spirits ... (the group's) magisterial demonstrations of musical prowess (are) obviously as much fun for the players as for the audience."

The quartet has spread that fun to such prestigious venues as Lincoln Center and Carnegie Hall. They've also toured Japan, Germany and the United Kingdom.

Kanengiser has said the group began its career innocently enough.

"You could say that we've been on a 20-year homework assignment ever since," he told one reporter. "The concept of a multiple guitar ensemble was pretty unique (and) somewhat of a rare bird back then."

The first guitar quartet to ever win the prestigious Concert Guild International Competition, the group is known for its unpredictable concerts.

They're just as likely to perform Bach or Tchaikovsky as they are a work based on a Led Zeppelin song or a piece influenced by traditional African folk instrumentation.

After years recording for a smaller label, the group signed to Sony Classical in 1998 and released "LAGQ," which spent six months in the top 15 of Billboard's Classical-Crossover chart.

Its follow-up, "Air and Ground," found similar success. Acoustic Guitar magazine raved about the quartet's "legacy of exploring the unexpected with forays into classical, jazz, Celtic, and Afro-Cuban music as well as the group's own creations."

That same magazine named the Los Angeles Guitar Quartet one of the top artists of the '90s, alongside the likes of the Dave Matthews Band, Beck and Ani DiFranco.

"We're responding to the current musical world in which we live but with a chamber music sensibility (and) classical guitar technique," Kanengiser once said. "We're expanding and exploring (while always) returning to our original roots."

Ross Raihala covers entertainment for The Olympian and can be reached at 360-754-5406 or rraihala@olympia.gannett.com.

The Los Angeles Guitar Quartet

- When: 7:30 p.m. April 7.

- Where:The Washington Center for the Performing Arts, 512 Washington St. S.E., Olympia.

- Tickets: $16.50-$24.50 adults; $14.50-$22.50 students, seniors and military; and $8.25-$12.25 youths.

- For information: Call The Washington Center box office at 360-753-8586.

- On the Web: www.washingtoncenter.org

The Olympian Copyright 2002

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