Experience six virtuoso guitarists together on one stage when the University of Alabama at Birmingham’s Alys Stephens Performing Arts Center presents the California and Montreal Guitar Trios.
This one-night-only opportunity is set for 8 p.m. Saturday, April 18, in UAB’s Alys Stephens Center, 1200 10th Ave. South. The evening will feature California Guitar Trio and Montreal Guitar Trio performing arrangements of classical works and innovative takes on rock standards. Their amazing artistry brings together everything from surf music and Ennio Morricone’s “spaghetti Western” themes to Pink Floyd, Queen, The Beatles and Bach. Tickets are $34.50. Call 205-975-2787 or visit www.AlysStephens.org.
CGT is Bert Lams, Hideyo Moriya and Paul Richards; MG3 is Marc Morin, Sébastien Dufour and Glenn Lévesque. The guitarists are from four countries: Japan, Canada, Belgium and the United States. Together they fuse more than 40 years of combined performing experience into one unique six-by-six-string “phenomensemble,” according to the performers’ bio. CGT’s steel-stringed guitars blend naturally with MG3’s nylon-stringed guitars, as each trio’s fret boards chase the other’s in original compositions and new arrangements of progressive rock, world, jazz and classical music.
Inspired in 2009 by an impromptu studio session together in Montreal, CGT and MG3 began in 2010 to tour across Canada and the United States, performing in over 100 cities.
The sextet has since released a live recording in 2011, has landed showcases at arts presenter conferences, and frequently co-bills on tours throughout North America: from the Iridium in New York City, to Montreal Jazz Festival twice, Napa Valley Opera House, and ever-increasing points in between.
CGT’s 14 albums, streamed more than 11 million times on Pandora, offer diverse snapshots of the group’s mercurial muse. The trio’s most recent release, “Masterworks,” showcases its classical side, with expansive takes on Bach, Beethoven, Arvo Pärt and Schubert.
Winner of the 2011 Opus Award for “concert of the year” in the Jazz /World Music category, MG3 has released six albums. “Der Prinz,” under the Analekta label, was launched in February 2014, during the 15th edition of the Montréal en Lumière Festival.