Perhaps you remember the “Virtual Guitar Orchestra” video from a couple of months ago, in which classical guitar stars and other less-known players joined forces in pandemic-imposed isolation, and played a wonderful piece written by Sérgio Assad called Kaleidokithara. Well, now the ever-changing Virtual Guitar Orchestra is back in another amazing video posted on July 10, featuring a veritable who’s who of classical guitarists—but also steel-string and electric guitarists (!), percussionists, and a bassist, performing (again in isolation) a new work by Assad called Scient, Safe and Sane. It’s a complex, but breezy and fun piece; very accessible. Among the players are Fabio Zanon, Jérémy Jouve, Pavel Steidl, Irina Kulikova, David Tanenbaum, Jason Vieaux, Antigoni Goni, Pablo Marquez, Xuefei Yang, Pablo Villegas, Margarita Escarpa, Ralph Towner, Antoine Boyer—there are way too many to name them all! It’s a marvelous project, executed flawlessly and with great spirit. —Blair Jackson
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