Sunday, March 8 at 2:00, Guitar in the Gallery presents The Caulkins Guitar Duo, in concert at Gallery One, 408 N Pearl in Ellensburg, WA.

Neil and Tamara are back with an entire program of music written for them, including the World Premiere of “When Flowers Sleep,” a hauntingly beautiful free-flowing and magical botanical muse.

The program opens with Michael Young’s Prelude Music, a majestic – and playful – four movement work: Prelude, Fugue, Passacaille, and Toccata. This is followed by “Pentamerisms” by R. Michael Daugherty. This suite explores the number five (i.e. “penta” is a prefix meaning five, originally from Greek) in three movements.

Bruce Reiprich’s impressionistic “When Flowers Sleep” opens the second half. “Dry Falls,” co-commissioned with Friends of the Lower Grand Coulee, is in five movements evoking the Missoula Floods with still water motifs and crashing waves. You can hear a segment discussing the “Dry Falls” composition here on Northwest Public Radio.

We enjoyed a very special event in Soap Lake, Washington! On Saturday, May 20, 2023, at 4:00 pm, we presented a brand new work written for us by renowned composer Martin Kennedy. Co-commissioned with the Friends of the Lower Grand Coulee, this wonderful new piece evokes the magnificent landscape carved out by the Missoula Floods some 15,000 years ago.

We discussed the piece and the commisioning process with Scott Cowan on the Explore Washington podcast.

It was paired with the premiere of the last movement of Michael Young’s “Prelude Music” and our new favorite piece from the archives, an early nineteenth-century suite by Portuguese composer A. de Abreu.

In 2020, we were awarded a grant through the Friends of the Grand Coulee to engage composer Martin Kennedy to write a suite for two guitars. Neil and Tamara set out on their tandem bicycle along with Martin (also an avid cyclist) to experience the Grand Coulee area. Inspired by the magnificent terrain, Martin wrote Dry Falls a six movement suite that portrays the magnificence of the Lower Grand Coulee landscape.

Andy Kovach, President of Friends of the Lower Grand Coulee, said this event is exactly how we want to promote creativity and build connections in the small, rural communities of Soap Lake and the Lower Grand Coulee

IN OTHER NEWS: Neil presented his research on nineteenth-century cadenzas at the Northwest Guitar Festival in Yakima, WA, on Saturday, April 6, 2024. You may ask, “What are cadenzas?!” Cadenzas are virtuosic improvised sections of music either in the middle of a piece or at the end. Every performer of 19th century music should have a few in their back pocket! You can also read about cadenzas in the article Neil published in the latest issue of Soundboard magazine (join the Guitar Foundation of America GFA to download his article). Tamara adjudicated the first round of the Adult competition.

Stay tuned for the next NW Guitar Festival for concerts, workshops, and competitions. It will take place in West Seattle in Spring, 2025, hosted by Michael Partington and friends.

Guitar in the Gallery Presents:

The Golden Age of the Russian Guitar

PROGRAM

Polonaise melancholique                                               Ignatz von Held (1766-1814)

Air with Variations and Rondo                                Anon. (Polish MS)

Kozak                                                                         Anon. (Madame Diehl’s MS)

Kozaque – Air Russe                                                    A. Swientitsky (Moscow, ca. 1803)

Folie d’Espagne                                                          Andrei Sychra (1773–1850)

God Save the Tsar!

Cachucha                                                                     Pietro Pettoletti (ca. 1795-ca. 1870)

L’illusion perdue and the Orphan’s song                   Nikolay Alexandrov (1818-1884)

Polonaise in E Major                                                  Michał Ogiński (arr. by Sychra)

Polonaise in G Minor                                                            

INTERMISSION

Ukrainian Song                                                          Mikhail Vysotsky (1791-1837)

Fantasia “At the Seashore”                                       Vasily Sarenko (1814-1881)

Ukrainian Dance                                                                  

Spanish Serenade                                                       Matvei Pavlov-Azancheev (1888-1963)

The Zulu Procession

Jazz-Band

Songs and Dances from the USSR                            Mikhail Gorbunov  (ca. 1930)

Dr. Oleg Timofeyev is a master of the late nineteenth-century seven-string guitar for which a wealth of repertoire was composed during the height of the Russian empire – in the age of the Czars. A world-renowned expert on this instrument and its music, Oleg will be publishing his research through Duke University press in the near future.

Sunday, Feb. 26, at 2:00 in Gallery One: Guitar in the Gallery Presents!
Oleg will play Music from the Age of Czars played on a late 19th century seven-string historic instrument. Admission by sugggested donation, $10.

While in Ellensburg, Dr. Timofeyev will also be presenting two additional events at Central Washington University:

1. Lecture/Recital: The Seven-String Guitar in the Russian Empire  
Mon. Feb. 27, CWU Recital Hall, 1:00pm

In this lecture-recital, Dr. Timofeyev traces the origins of the seven-string guitar to the milieu of Czech and Polish musicians who found themselves in Moscow and St. Petersburg in the 1790s.  He then describes through music and slides the rich culture of the Russian Empire seen through images of the seven-string guitar literature, paintings, and memoirs. Finally, the 1917 Revolution brings the glory of the seven-string guitar to an end and ushers in a new approach to music.  

2. Film Showing: “The Gypsy Vengerka” (2022, 90 mins)
Mon. Feb. 27, Museum of Culture & Environment, Dean Hall Museum lobby, 5:30pm

In this new film, Romani (“Gypsy”) musicians take center stage as Dr. Timofeyev and his film crew document the importance of the Romani in Russian and Soviet culture. “The Gypsy Vengerka” (2022, 90 mins) will followed by a Q & A session with Dr. Timofeyev (and possibly members of the Romani via zoom).

Happy New Year! Join us on the following Sunday afternoons at 2:00 pm.

We are excited to announce upcoming concerts at Gallery One in beautiful downtown Ellensburg, WA. Concerts take place in the acoustically-stunning Evelith Green gallery atrium on the third floor at Two O’Clock on Sunday afternoons. Concerts are by donation and open to the public. Thank you to our sponsors and audience donors for making this series possible.

Our April concert with Jessica Papkoff will be rescheduled to the 2023-2024 season at Gallery One. We look forward to sharing more great music with you in the Fall!

We are working on bringing more wonderful guitar music to the Kittitas Valley community and beyond! Over the pandemic, we have been rehearsing a lot of new music – both from early nineteenth century archives and music written by living composers especially for the Caulkins Guitar Duo.

Tentative dates for the Guitar in the Gallery series follow. Concerts will still take place on Sundays at 2:00 pm in the acoustically-resonant atrium upstairs at Gallery One, 408 N Pearl St. in Ellensburg, WA.

Mark your Calendars for 2022-23:

Sunday, Nov. 13: Caulkins Duo playing early Romantic music for their new CD. Music by Varlet, Courmont, Arbreu, and Würfel!

Sunday, Feb. 26: Oleg Timofeyev, Russian 7-string guitar with music from the Age of Czars

Sunday, April 2: Jessica Papkoff, Spanish classics

Sunday, April 30: Caulkins Duo – back with new music written especially for us – several premieres!

To celebrate our Wedding Anniversary, we will be playing music on our early 19th century guitars at the Conservatory in Volunteer Park, Seattle, a place that has been special to us over the years. The program will include the first performance in the U.S. of a Duo by W.W. Würfel and a wonderful “Caprice” by A.H. Varlet.

We can host an audience of twenty-three. If you would like to attend, please send a check for $20 or more (proceeds will be donated to the conservatory) to POB 1676, Ellensburg, WA 98926 and we will hold a spot for you!

From the Serenade for Guitar and Flute by Charles Blum.