The New York Press
Volume 19 Issue 4
January 25 - January 31 , 2006
| This past Sunday, the New York Marathon—Guitar Marathon, that
is—tested New Yorkers’ endurance at sitting through hours
of classical guitar. The 92nd Street Y’s artistic director, David
Spelman, arranged the event, the 3rd biannual one, with Spanish guitar
legend Pepe Romero. I asked Spelman before the show whether it would be
the best one yet. “What will be different,” he said, “is
it’s a little more tight, thematically. The first was just guitar
and the overall chronology of guitar through time on Earth. This one is
the history of the classical guitar in Spain.” But besides some
of the world’s top strummers playing classics out of Iberia, there
were three new compositions, commissioned specifically for the event,
all expanding the definition of flamenco guitar. The first of these exploded from the weird-looking contraption that is Dominic Frasca’s 10-string guitar. Several of the frets were fitted with their own tiny caposto to give them the proper tuning for this piece. His performance was technically mind-blowing, beginning with a rapid ostinato (repeated rhythmic pattern) played only with his right hand, and developing to include contrapuntal lines carried by his left hand; the effect was so complex that WNYC’s John Schaefer, acting as host, had to clarify afterward that there was no looping—just the one line of notes. Frasca’s admiration for Phillip Glass and Steven Reich was apparent in the sustained, textural tones he created. And like so many of these minimalists’ works, Frasca’s piece did not develop a classic melodic theme or progress through different moods. But there’s little that’s classical about Frasca, who played barefoot, seated on a milk crate, his iBook open in front of him helping him create the unique surround-sound he was after (and not, as he’d joshed, “to watch porn”). With his shaved head, black leather pants and muscle shirt, Frasca looked every bit the bad boy who’s been in and out of multiple graduate programs and owns a club called The Monkey. |