Hey!

A musical storyteller writes a waltz for Valeria, who we recently had the pleasure of interviewing. The title of the European Guitar Quartet's latest album is a successful play on words. And anyone who has ever had the pleasure of performing as a soloist with an orchestra knows that this requires a bunch of extra skills.
Plus lots of insights in the interview with the wonderful Julia Trintschuk. And while we go on a funny car ride with Woodie Guthrie on the Feel-Good Tune and travel back to a time when climate catastrophes still sounded like blurbs in science fiction novels, Leon Albert escapes the world-weariness with a skillful fugato in the etudes category, as always with a light-footed routine.

With issue twenty-four, we have arrived in May. Today we open the windows, enjoying spring and celebrating the diversity of guitar music and the never-ending stream of exciting releases. We feel so lucky to be able to immerse ourselves in this world again and again. A little musical utopia. A small island that bravely defies all dystopias. Be brave, be optimistic and let's color the zeitgeist with beauty. And: recommend this newsletter to your trusted guitar enthusiasts.

Enjoy the read,
Stefan und Willi

YOUTUBE FIND OF THE WEEK
with Valeria Galimova

How nice it is to have a piece dedicated to you. Especially when it is such a lyrical gem as the waltz that Mathias Duplessy has dedicated to Valeria Galimova and yes, you can tell Valeria has a special relationship with this dedication when she flies lightly and dreamily across the strings.

Mathias is a musical globetrotter who simply washes away borders. With his guitar, he travels from Paris to the steppes of Mongolia – and takes us on a sound journey that is as wild as it is beautiful. He loves to mix cultures: French esprit meets Asian mysticism, film music meets folk, jazz meets horse-head fiddle. When he plays, it sounds like adventure, longing and a movie in your head. Duplessy is no ordinary musician – he is a storyteller. Check it out.

ALBUM OF THE WEEK
with European Guitar Quartet

The title has many layers, but one thing describes the album Fourtune most clearly: happiness!

No need to introduce the four guitarists of the European Guitar Quartet in detail, as they are all internationally renowned exceptional artists in their own right. What a blessing that they have joined forces in this quartet. And now, after 10 years, there's finally something new to listen to. No pressure, but after so many years, this album has to hit home. We'll say it right away: it does ;)

And with so much joy of playing! The pieces are in themselves super rich when it comes to sounds and techniques, and this diversity only gains more depth in the context of the track list. We had loads of fun listening to it!

The first track, “Turn the World Around,” put a kind of basic smile on our faces (and everything behind and underneath it) that hasn’t left us since. Not even with “Porthos”, a beautifully indulgent, elegiac piece. “Father O'Blivion” is another candidate that falls into the ‘Oh Yes’ category. You'll look forward to every next track – we promise!

Reentko, Thomas, Pavel and Zoran stand for an extraordinary, unique fusion. A quartet of great artistic fertility that brings out the best in each of them.

And, last but not least, a little spoiler: the last piece…

ENJOY!

MORNING-ROUTINE
A coffee with Leon Albert

Hi Leon, what’s the routine for this week?

A little fugato as a distraction or escape from world-weariness never hurts. Besides, compositional tricks like mirroring etc. are always fun. Perhaps this etude will also provide some inspiration for your own pieces?

KNOW-HOW
with Julia Trintschuk

Julia Trintschuk belongs to a new generation of classical guitarists who impress with their expressiveness and stylistic openness. In her concerts, she demonstrates how multi-faceted and lively the guitar repertoire can sound – whether as a soloist or playing with an orchestra. Her musical signature combines technical precision with narrative depth. In the interview, she talks about how to prepare for a concert as a soloist with orchestra, which concert she would like to play one day and which concert she enjoyed the most.  
Thank you, Julia, for taking the time to answer our questions!

Hi Julia, what was the most enjoyable concert you’ve played as a soloist with an orchestra and why?
Every concert brings its own special and enjoyable experiences, since all guitar concertos I played are very different, especially if we talk about the concertos from all epochs. Also, every conductor and every orchestra is different. What always brings a special atmosphere is if there's the honor of premiering a concerto and work with the composers. Some of the emotionally most special concertos I played were the very first concert I played with orchestra, when I was 16 years old (Concierto de Aranjuez), the first time I premiered a contemporary guitar concerto and worked with the composer together with the orchestra (concerto by Björn Raithel) and my final soloist exam, where I played one of the guitar concertos by my last teacher Joaquín Clerch (Concierto de Cáceres).

How do you prepare the piece before the first rehearsals with an orchestra? 
For me it's important to know the orchestral part very well, not only for the purpose of making good musical decisions on my phrasing, articulation, fingerings, etc., but also to see where there could be difficulties that need to be worked on in the rehearsals. Usually there's not a lot of time in the rehearsals, so it's extremely important to work time efficiently and be prepared very well, so especially when playing premieres or unknown contemporary concertos it's also very helpful to go over the piece with the conductor before the first rehearsal and if necessary talk over some parts directly with the several musicians in the orchestra after the first rehearsal.

Can you tell us any funny story, an unexpected moment, a challenge or even a mistake you made during a rehearsal or concert as a soloist?
Of course there are always funny moments when it comes to the amplification of the guitar when playing with the orchestra! But the most unexpected moment was probably when I premiered a guitar concerto and right after the first few bars the conductor skipped a small cadence for the guitar and gave the next cue for the orchestra instead, where I immediately had to play too, so it was a little surprising jump to the next part! :D

Is there any guitar concerto you would love to approach in the future that you haven’t performed yet?
Is there any contemporary concerto you like? There are many wonderful concertos out there which are very unknown and are difficult to find and make possible to perform, but I do have a list of concertos I hope to perform in the future and even more I hope to perform more premieres so our repertoire for guitar and orchestra gets bigger and bigger and the performance of orchestra with guitar becomes more and more popular and natural.

Imagine you could have one sentence printed on a poster to be put up in huge numbers at all the (classical) music festivals in the world. What sentence would that be?
Keep healing souls!

FEEL-GOOD TUNE OF THE WEEK
with Woody Guthrie

An upbeat and positive melody! It makes you want to jump out of bed in the morning. Or take a look at the sky in the middle of the day. Stress? Bad news? Put on your headphones, let your hair blow in the wind and jump on the good mood train!

Our feel-good tune of the week!

OUTRO

Thanks for reading! Check out the newsletter playlist. It's growing! Recommend music for it. Be good to each other. Enjoy May.

Stay tuned!
Stefan & Willi

New Classical Guitar is a newsletter by Willi Leinen and Stefan Degel from TMBM. You can find our music and more information about our journey at http://t-m-b-m.com/.

On Spotify, we curate a playlist with our favorite pieces. Feel free to follow our New Classical Guitar Playlist at https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3ZwxJRAsW9Zs2JiS2eLy6a?si=9b2a737f01c043a4 and recommend new additions.