Deseret Morning News: Quartet's own are night's best

by Rebecca C. Howard

PARK CITY — The Georgia Guitar Quartet's Thursday-night concert brought together a variety of different styles and time periods for an interesting, balanced evening.

The group — comprised of Kyle Dawkins, Brian Smith, Philip Snyder, and Jason Solomon — performed in St. Mary's Church in Park City as part of the Deer Valley Music Festival.

Although the various pieces complemented each other nicely, the selections they either wrote or arranged themselves were the evening's superior pieces.

It's not that the others were bad. Their performance of Praetorius' dances from the late Renaissance, for example, almost sounded lutelike, and the Telemann Quartet in D Major was reminiscent of a harpsichord. The performances were good, to be sure, but they could have been performed by any guitar quartet.

But such pieces as "Sketches," by Smith, or "Road to Lisdoonvarna," arranged by Dawkins, and the group's collective personality burst forth with energy and sparkle. Most were marked with complex textures, interesting colors, and percussive rhythms beat out on the body of the guitar.

Take Smith's arrangement of Guaraldi's "Linus and Lucy," for example. Rather than conforming to the expected path of replicating the tune as close as possible to the original writing, Smith's take was closer to "Impressions of Linus and Lucy" or "Fantasia on Linus and Lucy." Every time the theme was stated, it took a different texture or color, with no two repetitions the same — some statements even consisting of percussive rhythm only.

Snyder's arrangement of Ginastera's dances for piano offered an interesting twist, as the piano pieces were written to imitate guitar, now rewritten to actually be played on guitar.

The triptych of originals works: Smith's "Sketches," Dawkins' "Flight," and Solomon's "Rung," were spirited and fresh. And their addition of a bluegrass arrangement seemed quintessentially Georgia Guitar Quartet — color, texture and rhythm imbued with a sense of humor.

The only piece arranged by someone else that equaled the interest of the others was a Shillair arrangement of Ravel's "Empress of the Pagodas," which blended some fantastic color and textures.

August 18, 2006