Four great guitarists tour Montana in February
International Guitar Night, the world’s premier touring guitar festival, comes to Big Sky, Billings and Bozeman Feb. 18-20.
IGN founder Brian Gore will be joined by three of Europe’s finest acoustic guitarists: Gypsy jazz legend Lulo Reinhardt, contemporary fingerstyle innovator Mike Dawes and multi-genre showman Andre Krengel.
Reinhardt has expanded on the legacy of his grand-uncle Django with Latin-flavored rhythms and melodies. Dawes’s lightning-speed and deft tapping and percussion were among the highlights of the 2014 IGN tour. Krengel is a master of many styles, from flamenco to swing to modern ballads, and he is a frequent collaborator with Reinhardt in Germany.
Gore founded IGN in 1995 as a forum for the world’s finest guitarists/composers to play their latest original songs and share musical ideas and talent with their peers. For each tour, he invites a new cast of guitar luminaries to join him for special evenings of solos, duets, and quartets that highlight the dexterity and diversity within the world of acoustic guitar.
Lulo Reinhardt is Django Reinhardt’s grand-nephew, and a third generation master from Germany. He has retained the incredible Reinhardt soul, speed and dexterity and updated the repertoire. First taught by his father at age 5, he played in the Mike Reinhardt Sextet at 12, and later co-founded the group Django Reinhardt and the Heartbreakers. In 1991, he founded I Gitanos with his father Bawo and cousin Dege, touring throughout Europe.
A spontaneous and spirited musician, he has traveled to southern Spain in search of flamenco roots, and to South America, exploring various musical styles of Latin Jazz.
Since Mike Dawes released his debut single with Candyrat Records in 2012, his international profile has exploded. The young performer’s virtuoso style, littered with subtle nuances and micro-techniques has earned the 24-year-old Brit massive international critical acclaim.
Acoustic Magazine praises his “beautiful and sensitively played arrangements and compositions.”
Andre Krengel is a versatile and virtuosic guitar player who is mainly self-taught, with his own unique style of playing, and is one of the foremost, leading and prominent players in Germany. Myriad influences – jazz, flamenco, Gypsy-jazz, rhythm and blues and good old-fashioned rock and roll – are woven into his unique style.
San Francisco guitar poet Brian Gore is gaining a reputation as one of the most interesting and influential performers of “the next generation” in fingerstyle guitar. A musical romantic, his compositions draw inspiration from myth and modern literature. His lyrical, understated compositions integrate classical and percussive techniques that display what the Los Angeles Times calls “a characterful bounce and spaciousness all his own.”
Big Sky: 7:30 p.m. Feb. 18 at the Warren Miller Performing Arts Center (406-995-2742 or bigskyarts.org)
Bozeman: 7:30 p.m. Feb. 19 at the Ellen Theatre (406-585-5885 or www.theellentheatre.com)
Billings: 7:30 p.m. Feb. 20 at the Alberta Bair Theater (406-256-6052 or www.albertabairtheater.org)