Radio.WOSU.org: "From Yesterday to Penny Lane, A Beatles Suite for Guitar and Orchestra" [by Afro-Cuban composer, guitarist & conductor Leo Brouwer]

Leo Brouwer (b. 1939)
is featured at AfriClassical.com

WOSU

By John Rittmeyer

May 5, 2016

Contemporary Cuban composer, conductor and guitarist Leo Brouwer is one of the eminent writers for music of the classical guitar and his works are performed by guitarists world-wide. 

He wrote a guitar sonata for Julian Bream in 1990 and played in the premier of El Cimeron, a modernist work by  German composer Hans Werner Henze in 1970 in Berlin.  He combines folk influences with modernist tendencies as a composer and is known for bringing the Afro-Cuban tradition to the fore in his guitar compositions.  But, Leo Brouwer is also a fan of the Beatles.

In 1986 Brouwer wrote From Yesterday to Penny Lane, Seven Beatles Transcriptions for guitar and strings.  He considers their music the folk songs of today.  On the next Fretworks, I'll have this tuneful suite in a recording by Finnish guitarist Timo Korhonen and the Tampere Philharmonic.

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Join me for Fretworks Saturday and Wednesday evenings at 7 on Classical 101