DONATE! Watch Salonline Previous Salonlines
Sunday, July 21 2024
— a “hybrid” event —
Michael DeLalla
Classical and Steel String Guitars
How I Built This
Greetings from Boulder CO-based guitarist/composer Michael DeLalla. Though I’ve been living in CO these last many years, I was a longtime resident and performing artist in the greater DMV area. I still return every July to teach a 2-week classical guitar workshop, and always try to book a tour or a few concerts around those two weeks. I’m so pleased to be returning to Emerson Avenue Salons.
I hope you can join me and the wonderful hosts of Emerson Avenue Salons, Bill and Jackie, for an evening of some of my favorite compositions—and a peek behind the curtain. I call this program “How I Built This.” A longer subtitle would be “Original Compositions and a Glimpse Into How They Came to Be.” Don’t panic—there’s not a quiz at the end of the concert. But I’ve crafted short introductions to each piece to offer some insight into my compositional process, sort of a roadmap through the terrain of a new piece. Who knows—it may be just the inspiration you need to take a musical idea you’ve had and craft it into something special.
BIOGRAPHY
“One of the very best acoustic guitarists in the world….music of the most exquisite order.” Matt Fink, All Music Guide
Over a long and storied career Michael DeLalla has been serving up a delicious brew of solo guitar compositions and arrangements of traditional tunes gathered worldwide, steeped with his classical training and seasoned with his jazz, Celtic and folk/world stylings. His fluency on classical, 12-string, and steel-string acoustic guitar showcases gifted improvisation and dazzling technical facility that never sacrifices the richness and poignancy of his compositions.
Michael’s family-friendly, multi-cultural concert performance includes his wry, sometimes irreverent observations and stories of the experiences that are behind the pieces. An evening with Michael isn’t just a collection of instrumental and vocal works but also an engaging narrative of his travels and travails found in his varied musical habitats, from a capella kan e diskan in Breton Gaelic, to evocations of Japanese koto music and the North African o’ud, to tweaking the nose of the classical music world with his raucous “Piece for Steel Drum (If I Played Steel Drum)”.
“…a sublime and uniquely crafted sonic landscape… DeLalla creates a sonic vibrancy on this CD that is rich, remarkable and revelatory.” Minor 7th.com, about his recording This Is How I Disappear
Also:
I’m fond of saying “I was Zooming before Zoom was cool”—I had been doing streaming concerts and private lessons since well before the pandemic. Here’s a link to one I did here in CO: https://www.facebook.com/GuitaristComposerMichaelDeLalla/videos/654239895449262
And a few other videos that might interest you:
JS Bach, Fugue from Violin Sonata 1, arr. for guitar by Michael DeLalla (note, this is actually more of a short film; jump up to 2:17 if you wish to ignore the intro): Bach Fugue in A Minor for Solo Guitar – YouTube
I composed this theme-and-variations-in-reverse as a double homage to Benjamin Britten and Thelonious Monk. Nocturnal Scenes ‘Round About Midnight – YouTube
And a recent work, a jazz waltz dedicated to our cat: “Waltz for Chat-colat”: Waltz for Chat-colat (youtube.com)
If you’d like to receive Emerson Avenue Salon invitations, you can add yourself to the invitation list HERE.