A masterful medley

Scholarship winners play music from around the

globe in Arts at One

By Kealy Doyle, Contributor

his week’s Arts at One
| audience was treated to a
whistle-stop tour around
the musical globe, with interesting
contemporary compositions from
Austria to Brazil to Vietnam. The
music department's scholarship
winners proved exceptionally
competent guides, playing with skill
and gusto.

First stop was Vietnam, courtesy
of composer Pham Duy’s “Hen Ho.”
Andrew Stevens was impressively
acrobatic on the guitar and off,
kicking his heels in mid-air as he
entered stage left. His harmonics
were delicate, his trills skilful,
and the sound flowing. This was
a sombre, reflective piece with, to
the untrained ear, a little bit of the
Andalusian air of previous weeks.
Stevens ended his performance with
another mischievous kick.

Next was a glimpse of home,
with a piece from one of Canada’s
most significant composers, Harry
Somers. Jessica Shen handled this
interesting, moody piano work with
utter confidence. It attained the
unexpected and deserved its title,
“Strangeness of Heart.” It was an
impressive performance from Shen,
but a tense work which kept the
audience slightly off balance.

If Somers kept them off balance,
Austrian composer Jené Takacs
toppled the audience entirely in
Shen’s second performance. “When
the Frog Goes Wandering” was
also aptly named, veering all over
the keyboard in a tumbling, erratic
outpouring of notes. At a minute
and a half, it was a mercifully
short journey, but kudos to Shen
for delivering another challenging
piece.

It was off to Brazil next,
with classical guitar duo Irish
Montemayor and Tim Zacharias.
They began Celso Machado’s exotic
“Marchinha de Carnaval” steadily
and with measure. Zacharias _
silently kept pace with his foot,
and the two remained in perfect
unison throughout the piece. It was
deceptively simple, enjoyable, and
upbeat. Zacharias couldn’t mask a
grin over the closing chords.

The duo continued to keep
things simple with their second
performance. “Lesson for Two
Lutes,” an anonymous piece, was
an exercise in keeping excellent

6

time—something Montemayor and
Zacharias had clearly mastered.

It was short and sweet, and a nice
demonstration of the pair working
in harmony.

The scene shifted to Europe
with mezzo-soprano Joanna Henry’s
rendition of “Maria Wiegenlied,”
by German organist Max Reger.
This beautiful lullaby was hugely
popular in its time and sold more
copies than all of Reger’s other
works put together. It is not difficult
to hear why either. Henry’s sweet,
girlish voice was well suited,
and Jessica Chiu provided a fine
accompaniment on the piano.

We detoured to green old
England with Henry’s performance
of Roger Quilter’s “June.” Quilter
is known for his light art songs,
and this was a particularly nimble,
pleasant example, which Henry and
Chiu handled well. _

The final stop on the tour was
Hungary, and what a stop it was!
Williams Budhiharto demonstrated
complete mastery of Franz Liszt’s
“Les jeux d’eau a la Villa d’Este.”
This was indeed a fountain of a
piece, with wonderful, trilling
chords and flurried notes which
cascaded, slowed, rippled, and
built again to a quivering rush.
Budhiharto did some excellent work
at the treble end of the piano, which
must have required marvellous
concentration. It was a tremendous
finish.

The Arts at One series continues
on March 29 with the award
winners’ concert. Performances
are free to attend and begin every
Thursday at 1 p.m. in the Laura C.
Muir Performing Arts Theatre, New

‘Westminster campus.

e Joanna Henry — m
WAS

Phot

 

 

The Rhoad not to be forgotten
A tribute to Randy Rhoads, one of the world’s

greatest guitarists

By Eric Wilkins, Staff Writer

arch 19, 1982: Guitarist
Randy Rhoads, tour bus
driver Andrew Aycock,

and hairdresser / seamstress
Rachel Youngblood took a joyride
in a small plane while en route to
a festival. The flight would turn
out to be the last thing any of the

‘ three ever did, as it went down in

flames.

That tragic flight was later
revealed to be aided by the fact
that Aycock, who was flying the
plane, had been on cocaine at
the time. Additionally, Rhoads
boarded despite his fear of flying,
and Youngblood’s heart condition

‘certainly made the event a cocktail

for disaster. On that day, 30 years

ago, three lives were lost in one

of the most unnecessary and
gruesome of fashions.

But Rhoads’ light has not
faded since his untimely death.
Despite passing away at the
young age of 25, and having (by
comparison to other guitarists)
relatively little recorded material,
Rhoads has continued to be
viewed as one of the greatest
guitarists of all time.

While Rhoads had enjoyed his
time in previous groups, namely
Quiet Riot, which saw the release
of two records in Japan, his shot at
North American fame was not to
come until 1980. Ozzy Osbourne
had just been kicked out of Black
Sabbath due to his many highly

a
i Randy Rhoads

 

publicized addictions. Osbourne
then set out to create a new group,
and while auditioning guitarists,
happened to have the young
Rhoads come by. “He plugs in his
amp and starts doing these finger
exercises. I almost cried he was

so good,” said Osbourne in his
2010 autobiography, I Am Ozzy.
With that brief and highly erratic
(on Osbourne’s part) audition,
Rhoads became the new guitarist
for Osbourne’s “solo” project, The
Blizzard of Ozz.

It was during his time with
Osbourne that Rhoads finally got
to shine. With Quiet Riot, Rhoads’
desire to incorporate the classical
scales he had learned so well as
a child was more or less stifled.
However, with Osbourne, it was
a completely different story;
Rhoads was given the creative
freedom he needed, allowing
him to help develop the sound
that would later become known
as neo-classical metal. Such was
with one of Rhoads’ best known
contributions during that time,
which would result in the timeless
classic, “Crazy Train.”

Rhoads has since always been
viewed as a prolific guitarist.
While his time in the spotlight
was a flash in the pan in the grand
scheme of things, he has managed
to leave a lasting impression on
the music world that will not
soon (if ever) be forgotten. Rest in
peace, Randy.