Here’s a fresh new video that really grabbed us: New York-based Australian guitarist Rupert Boyd playing Astor Piazzolla’s wonderfully dynamic “Otoño Porteño” on a 1976 Miguel Rodriguez “Churchdoor” guitar, previously owned by Celin Romero and John Dearman—but more recently part of the Russell Cleveland Collection currently being sold piece-by-piece by Guitar Salon International (Santa Monica, Calif.), who shot the video. This particular piece is part of a four-movement work the great Argentinian composer wrote between 1965 and 1970 devoted to the four seasons—”Otoño” being autumn.
“Otoño Porteño,” arranged by Sergio Assad, is also the lead-off track on Boyd’s excellent just-released CD, Fantasías, which features a stimulating blend of pieces—several billed “fantasia” in the title—by composers from many eras, including John Dowland, Heitor Villa-Lobos, Luigi Legnani, Byron Yasui (the gorgeous “Fantasy on a Hawaiian Lullabye”), fellow Aussie Phillip Houghton, Manuel de Falla, and others; it’s a fine album.
Incidentally, in the Fall 2015 issue of Classical Guitar, we published a story about a 1973 Rodriguez Churchdoor guitar that came through GSI.
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