Brazilian Guitar Quartet
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www.brazilianguitarquartet.com

"They play together like a dream… an evening of nonstop virtuosity."
St.Louis Post-Dispatch

The Boston Classical Guitar Society is proud to present the 2008-2009 season opening concert featuring the Brazilian Guitar Quartet. Praised by the Los Angeles Times for their "world-class precision, near-perfect balance and sensitive musicality", the Brazilian Guitar Quartet has established itself as one of the world's leading guitar ensembles. The group's unique combination of six-string and extended-range eight-string guitars allows for the exploration of an original and unusual repertoire. In their almost ten years of activity, the BGQ has performed more than 250 concerts in the Americas, Europe and Asia, often receiving ecstatic audience responses and garnering rave reviews in sold-out halls.

The quartet, formed in 1998 consists of Everton Gloeden, Tadeu do Amaral, Luiz Mantovani, and Clemer Andreotti, all four being virtuoso solo performers. Luiz Mantovani lived in the Boston area for several years performing in the Quadrivium guitar quartet. Mantovani is the first and only guitarist to receive the prestigious Artist Diploma from the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, the conservatory's highest award for artistic excellence. The remaing three guitarists were all born in São Paulo and studied with some of the leading Brazilian musicians of the past 50 years. Everton Gloeden studied with Roberto dalla Vechia, Sidney Zaghetto, Henrique Pinto, Alvaro Pierri, Abel Carlevaro, Guido Santorsola, Sergio Cominatto, Michel Philippot and Isabel Sampaio. Tadeu do Amaral studied with the legendary guitar teacher Isaias Savio, Leo Soares and Claudio Santoro. Clemer Andreotti studied with Henrique Pinto, Abel Carlevaro, Guido Santórsola, Alvaro Pierri, Eduardo Fernandez, and Miguel Angel Girollet.

CONCERT REVIEWS:
"Everything came together beautifully: the ensemble was tight, the contrapuntal interplay was crisp, and the closing Badinerie was as lively as one could want. Villa-Lobos's 'Bachianas Brasileiras No.1' pays tribute toBach by combining elements of his style (counterpoint in particular) with a style in which disparate elements-American jazz, French Impressionism, African rhythmic impulses-are melded into a distinctively Brazilian sound. This Brazilian accent has both a sunny and a meditative side, each of which was heard to fine effect in Ronaldo Miranda's 'Variações Sérias' (1991) and Camargo Guarnieri's 'Ponteio No. 24.' The more heavily folkloric roots of Brazilian music were heard in... the "Dança Negra" and the 'Dança Brasileira.' And to close its program, the group offered a glimpse of European Romanticism as filtered through a painterly Brazilian sensibility in the Sonata in D (1894) by Antônio Carlos Gomes. The quartet played... engagingly and with a virtuosic flair."
THE NEW YORK TIMES

"The Brazilian Guitar Quartet displayed their impeccable musicianship in their fastidiously shaped interpretation... Bachianas Brasileiras No. 1 by fellow Brazilian Heitor Villa-Lobos was pure inspiration. The arching melody in the middle movement was typical of Villa-Lobos' seductive songs. The outer movements oozed inventive variety. The piece also produced the Brazilian Guitar Quartet's best playing - attentive, respectful, authoritative and irresistibly musical."
HOUSTON CHRONICLE