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Bryce anderson salon1/20/2024 We all hope she comes back to Australia and Melbourne again very soon.Going into the 2022 football season, Aggies Wire will be looking at each scholarship player listed on the Texas A&M roster. As I said to the audience on the night (I was honoured with presenting Xuefei a gift from the Classical Guitar Society of Victoria), you would seriously be hard pressed to find a greater guitar talent in the world right now. And all played from memory, to boot! Just phenomenal. To round out the evening Fei left us with a cheeky little transcription of Plum Blossoms In The Snow (arranged by Gerald Garcia) from her latest recording, Sojourn. A delicious little “dessert” to finish the evening.Īn absolutely wonderful evening of classical guitar performance. A spell-binding performance again delivered with Fei’s trademark poise and grace. The end of the main programme featured Leo Brouwer’s Sonata para Guitarre Sola. Definitely not saving the easiest pieces till last! Brilliant. It takes a fair bit of talent to be able to do that! A fantastic arrangement, delivered as if it was intended to sit at home on the one instrument. What?! A glutton for punshiment surely in undertaking such an exercise (she admitted it was a pretty hard thing to do), but was well worth the effort. Fei decided apparently that she wanted to be able to play this tune without a duet partner, so took it upon herself to arrange it for solo guitar. This was of particular interest given that it’s normally played by two instruments, guitar and something else (another guitar or piano). Photo: Neil Muir (borrowed from Xuefei’s Facebook page)įei then presented us with her arrangement of Manuel de Falla’s Spanish Dance No. Xuefei waiting backstage, just a few moments before the start of the recital in Geelong. Head over to YouTube for a taste of what I mean. A pure demonstration of virtuosity in guitar playing and musicality. This was off the chain (to coin an Australian phrase). We were treated to Rodrigo’s Invocacion y danza. The next three pieces I’m not quite sure what to say about them to be honest. A fitting place to play such a piece, as he was inspired by the song of an Australian bird in writing this piece. This was followed by Song from a Bird by John Williams from his album of the same name. The second half of the programme featured a Chinese piece arranged by Fei, transcribed from the pipa or Chinese lute. Oh yes, and let’s not forget a beautiful sound too. This Chaconne was simply fantastic (there was even a moment where I thought a rather excitable audience member was going to start applauding about a quarter of a way into the epic piece!) – a demonstration of dexterity, left hand shenanigans and right hand wizardry. Bach’s Chaconne. The arrangement, again, was Fei’s own – a masterwork of masterworks, played by a master of the instrument. The first half of the evening was rounded out by a phenomenal (I’m going to run out of superlatives here!) interpretation of J.S. And quite possibly some of the most pianissimo pianissimos I’ve ever witnessed! A super light, relaxed and delicate right hand. The lyrical, sentimentality of these songs was treated in the most graceful and delicate manner by Fei – elegant, simple, sensitive. The Albeniz was followed by three Schubert songs (arranged by Merz) – Lob der Thranen, Aufenhalt and Standchen. As Fei announced, she’s a big Schubert fan and this was apparent from her playing. I particularly enjoyed the subtle Tango and the Zortico. Fei played the pieces with the requisite Spanish-inflected sentiment, yet balanced that with a delightfully delicate touch and elegant poise reminiscent of a classical ballet dancer. This selection, featured on her Rodrigo album , was a simply delightful start to the evening. She clearly demonstrated that she’s equally at home on the smaller, more informal salon-type stage as she is on the large concert hall stage.įei kicked off the proceedings with her own arrangements of five of the six movements from Isaac Albeniz’s Espana: Seis Hojas de Album suite (the Prelude, Tango, Malaguena, Capricho Catalan and Zortico). Myself and a lucky group of around 80 or so music and guitar fans cosied into the sumptuous surrounds of Sacred Heart College’s Chapel to witness Xuefei just completely own one of the most seriously impressive, big, fat, chunky solo programmes I’ve had the pleasure to see or hear. Hi Folks! Well, if you read my last blog post you’ll know that I was eagerly anticipating the Geelong solo concert of Chinese guitariste extraordinaire, Xuefei Yang, this week.
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