This recording, over five years in the making, was the inspiration of the founder of Doberman-Yppan, Paul Gerrits, and the two most recent chairs of the USC Thornton Classical Guitar Program — James Smith and Brian Head. Though both Paul and Jim have now left us, their spirit pervades the project. We are grateful for their inspiration and achievements. Our deepest thanks also go to Richard Hansen of Delta, Colorado, and the Augustine Foundation for their generous funding of this project. The guitar concerto as a genre has only dozens of examples in circulation, as compared with the hundreds of concertos for violin, cello and piano, to name the three big guns. That said, the 20th century was graced with outstanding guitar concertos by Villa Lobos, Rodrigo and Castelnuovo-Tedesco, to name a few major figures. As the level of guitar playing has advanced – exponentially, really – the guitar repertory, including concertos, has expanded rapidly in the past century or so. This recording presents six new concertos from early in this most recent century, the 21st. Composed between 2004 and 2011, in an age of very loud music, all six take into account an inescapable feature of the modern classical guitar—while it has a wide expressive range, it remains an instrument with an intimate dynamic range, even when subtly amplified as is often the case in modern performance practice. The orchestra, therefore, is decidedly chamber-sized with single woodwinds and limited (but crucial) use of brass; the string complement is also reduced to small orchestra forces. This is a supple and transparent instrumental ensemble which creates a chamber music atmosphere at many points in the music. This means that a large new music ensemble can tackle this repertoire, and the Universityof Southern California new music ensemble, Thornton Edge, has done just that. With twenty strings, plus woodwinds, horn,trumpet, percussion and celesta, USC Thornton Edge performed each of these works in concert, subsequently recording them. Beyond dramatically adding to the recorded catalogue of 21st century guitar concertos, the impetus for this project was the interaction of USC Thornton faculty guitarists with Thornton faculty composers and student musicians. In addition to two works by the celebrated guitarist composer, Dusan Bogdanovic, and a concerto by the Italian guitarist and composer currently teaching in Mexico, Simone Iannarelli, three new works were newly composed for this project by Thornton faculty composers Brian Head and Donald Crockett, and former Thornton composition student, now a professor at Pasadena City College, Steven Gates. What we have here are six very colorful works featuring guitar — highly virtuosic, intimately expressive, both subtle and in your-face — and small orchestra, supple and transparent. It is, I feel, a compelling mix. –Donald Crockett
