Guitar Festival reviewed in Post-Dispatch

St. Louis Post-Dispatch classical music critic Sarah Bryan Miller attended three of the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra's Guitar Festival performances this past week, and wrote a review of the three programs for Sunday's paper. You can find it online here.

SLSO Guitar Festival previewed in Post-Dispatch

The Sunday edition of the Post-Dispatch has an article by classical music critic Sarah Bryan Miller previewing the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra's Guitar Festival, which will take place this week at the Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts, The Pageant, and Powell Symphony Hall. The five concerts will include performances of music by Pat Metheny, Frank Zappa, Jimi Hendrix and Edgard Varese, as well as "Hallucination City," a Glenn Branca piece scored for 100 electric guitars, and orchestral fare including two American premieres of new symphonic works and Stravinsky's "The Rite of Spring."

Guest performers will include guitarist Jason Vieaux, who will perform the Metheny pieces and other works at the Pulitzer; composer/guitarist Steven Mackey, whose composition "Beautiful Passing" will be performed by the SLSO at Powell Hall; and famed jazz bassist John Patitiucci (pictured), who, for some odd reason, isn't mentioned at all in Miller's article despite being probably the best known (to the non-classical-music-listening public, anyway) of the guest performers. You can read Miller's piece online here.

Tickets for SLSO Guitar Festival concert at The Pageant on sale this Friday

Tickets for what promises to be the most intriguing program of the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra's 2008 Guitar Festival will go on sale at 5:00 p.m. this Friday, September 12.

The concert is scheduled for Thursday, November 13 at The Pageant, and will feature John Patitucci, known as one of the top bassists in jazz for his work with Chick Corea and other prominent musicians, and guitarist/composer Steven Mackey. Joined by members of the SLSO, they'll perform a program that will include Edgard Varese's "Arcana" and Frank Zappa's "G-Spot Tornado," with 98 more local guitarists pitching in for a rendition of a Glenn Branca symphony scored for 100 electric guitars. Tickets for the November 13 concert at The Pageant can be purchased online via Ticketmaster and in person at The Pageant Box Office and at all Ticketmaster outlets.

The SLSO's Guitar Festival will open with two chamber music concerts featuring Mackey and guitarist Jason Vieaux on Tuesday, November 11 and Wednesday, November 12 at the Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts, 3716 Washington Blvd. The program and the on-sale date for tickets to these two concerts are yet to be announced.

The festival will conclude on Friday, November 14 and Saturday, November 15, with Patitucci performing with the Symphony in a program at Powell Hall that will include Stravinsky's Rite of Spring and a new violin concerto composed by Mackey. Tickets for those two concerts are on sale now via the Powell Symphony Hall box office, with tickets for Friday's performance available here, and for Saturday's concert here.