John Flynn
Jan-25-2009, 9:16am
I saw the Festival of Four with Radim Zenkel last night. It was a great show and I strongly recommend it to anyone who has a chance to see it. FOF is a quartet with Zenkel, classical guitarist Richard Patterson, flamenco guitarist Guillermo Rios and flautist Viviana Guzman. Their show is a great evening of music, a mix of a little of everything from around the world.
Zenkel's mandolin playing is is stunning. He does this chord-over-melody tremolo technique with fingerpicks that is really amazing and unique. One of the evening's surprises, though, was that he did a solo piece on a Slovak shepard's flute called a "fugara." The instrument itself is about six feet long and I would describe it as a cross between a bassoon and a digeridoo. The sound it makes is ethereal and haunting. It is one of those "chills up your spine" effects and he played it very well.
The biggest surprise of the evening, though, was flautist Viviana Guzman. She is the most impressive flautist I've ever heard. Her playing is both incredibly smooth and intensely passionate at the same time and she can coax sounds out of the instrument, beyond what I thought a flute could do. She is also a consummate performer.
So, a mandolin player could justify seeing this group just for Radim's mandolin playing, but he or she would come away from it with a lot more.
Zenkel's mandolin playing is is stunning. He does this chord-over-melody tremolo technique with fingerpicks that is really amazing and unique. One of the evening's surprises, though, was that he did a solo piece on a Slovak shepard's flute called a "fugara." The instrument itself is about six feet long and I would describe it as a cross between a bassoon and a digeridoo. The sound it makes is ethereal and haunting. It is one of those "chills up your spine" effects and he played it very well.
The biggest surprise of the evening, though, was flautist Viviana Guzman. She is the most impressive flautist I've ever heard. Her playing is both incredibly smooth and intensely passionate at the same time and she can coax sounds out of the instrument, beyond what I thought a flute could do. She is also a consummate performer.
So, a mandolin player could justify seeing this group just for Radim's mandolin playing, but he or she would come away from it with a lot more.