In late February, I spent a few hours in the studio of luthier Pepe Romero Jr. in Southern California.
He and I had met once or twice before over his guitars, but this was the first time we made videos together.
Happy to share these 4 videos with you.
Feel free to comment on the videos here or on the YouTube videos.
I am incredibly appreciative of the support received this year.
Some of the concerts and trips would not have been financially feasible without the generosity of individuals and organizations.
Huge shouts to Arun Luthra, Walburga Marder, Marion Singer, Peter & Yukiko Zisa, Mary Rowell, Luigi Oliva and Nicoletta Vismara, Ciro Gentile, Gino D’Ignazio, Camille Lizarribar, Pasquale Tassone, Laura Kuhn, Renee Lewis & Chris Penny, Peter Frewen and Jenie Smith, Wolfgang and Mechthilde Weber, Yael Abrahamsson, Krista Keogh, All Classical Radio, WOMR, John McDonald, Hannabach Strings, New England Conservatory, Boston Mayor’s of Arts & Culture, NEFA, Christopher Bush, Patreon supporters, Laurie Caplan, Caroline, and my amazing wife and muse, Catherine.
Thank you so much!
US Premiere of Heretic by Richard Cameron-Wolfe – Best Performance of 2024 – The Arts Fuse
photo Catherine Larget-Caplan
New album – Spanish Gems – info & listen
New Publication with Edition Peters: Hovhaness, Mystic Flute – score & video
Debut at Symphony Space, Thalia Theater in New York – video
2 Premieres for Choir & Guitar:
Residency at the John Cage Trust at Bard College – blog post
Commissioned Douglas Knehans for a new work for guitar + electronics, to be premiered in 2025.
Collaboration with actors — Recited Shakespeare on stage!
Hall of Fame inductees for the Arts, Sciences and Humanities at Cherry Creek
Collaboration with poet Charles Coe
Hall of Fame induction to Cherry Creek High School – article
New Lullaby Project concerts and premieres #’s 76, 77, 78 – website
Piano solo ‘Aurore‘ debuted by John McDonald at Tufts University – video
Concerts in Oklahoma, Oregon, Maine, New York, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Tennessee
Joined the New England Conservatory Extension Division – link
Appointed to the Board of the American Composers Alliance
Created 22, 1-minute Guitar Instruction Videos on Youtube, Tiktok, Instagram
Album and concert reviews in Boston Musical Intelligencer, James Wegg Review (JWR), The WholeNote, The Arts Fuse, Fanfare, Take Effect.
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The 11 recordings reached over 10 million streams!
Returned to Europe for the first time since 2019!
Duomo di Milano
Passalacqua in Naples
Passalacqua Cappuccino
For more photos, videos, and news, follow me on Facebook, Youtube, Tiktok, Instagram, Threads, and LinkedIn!
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I had the pleasure of traveling and sharing music February 28 to March 11 in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma and in multiple cities in Oregon.
In Oklahoma, I was hosted by Oklahoma City University faculty and good guy Matthew Denman. Over the couple of days, I gave a recital, taught some lessons, and had some pretty amazing traditional Thai food. I performed New Lullaby Project composer Jacob Mashak’s ‘Lulubye,’ and met multi-Grammy winning composer Kitt Wakeley.
The OCU students were fantastic, asking good questions and demonstrating the all important desire to improve and share music. Matt was an excellent host. Check out the Celedonio Romero Guitar Institute, for which he directs. I encourage students of all levels to take part in such a great guitar adventure.
Kitt Wakeley, Aaron, Matt Denman
Most of my events in Oregon were hosted by Peter and Yukiko Zisa who run the 501c3 CDZ Collegium Musica. This includes co-sponsoring my performances for the Corvallis Guitar Society, George Fox University in Newberg, and at the U&I Event Center in Tigard. They were excellent hosts who connected me with violinist Mary Rowell and made sure all the events came from a place of love for music of the guitar.
Go CDZ!
At George Fox University and U&I Event Center, I was joined by violinist Mary Rowell. We performed 4 movements of John Cage’s ‘Six Melodies,’ two movements of Piazzolla’s ‘Histoire du tango,’ and ‘Revirado’ (unruly) also by Piazzolla. A special extra was having luthiers Jeffrey Elliott and Gregory Miller in attendance, and my school classmate Ross Grogan made an appearance. Super special evening!
For All Classical Radio in Portland, I performed my arrangements of Tárrega’s ‘Capricho Árabe’ with hints of Barrios, as well as a a few pieces with Mary Rowell, including couple of Cage melodies and a two Piazzolla pieces. We performed in front of a live audience and had a blast!
My final concert of the tour was in Astoria, an area I have a long history with since my mother moved there when I was 18. I have performed in the city well over 20x and it was the first place I performed on radio. For this visit I performed in a gorgeous home overlooking the river. Jenny and Ray Lund with Ann Lederer were excellent hosts, and the audience was all I could wish for.
Check out the photo album below for more photos. IF you have photos from this tour that you’d like to share in a Gallery please email me directly.
Guitarist and composer Aaron Larget-Caplan returns to Salem State University for a special one-night-only concert. TICKETS & INFO 
The concert, Altered Worlds, begins with Larget-Caplan’s arrangement of J.S. Bach’s Prelude in C Major, WTC I, BWV 846 partnered with Vineet Shende’s (Bowdoin College) Carnatic Prelude N. 1, After J.S. Bach, a re-imagining of the prior as if Bach were from South India. The monumental Legend of Hagoromo by Keigo Fujii explores mystical transformation through the 13th century myth, followed by John Cage’s serene In A Landscape, arranged by Larget-Caplan.
The evening concludes with the theatrical performance and US premiere of Heretic, a micro-opera for guitarist by Richard Cameron-Wolfe. Inspired by Arthur Machen’s haunting 1907 novel The Hill of Dreams, this realization is a multi-media event in collaboration with Salem State University theatre faculty Jerry Johnson and Aaron Larget-Caplan.
“As an artist, I try to push myself into new areas,” said Larget-Caplan, “and Heretic does that very well! Not just because I must sing, act, speak, and play a technically extremely difficult piece, but that each element is to be approached from the theatrical side as well. Collaborating with the theater director Jerry Johnson has enlivened the experience. I’m extremely excited!”
Born Arthur Llewelyn Jones in 1863, Arthur Machen became one of the most influential writers of his generation. He drew on the dark landscapes of his childhood in Wales, together with his adult life in bohemian fin-de-siécle London, to create magical and disturbing tales. His admirers include Stephen King, and H. P. Lovecraft, who described him as one of the four ‘modern masters of the horror story’.
Larget-Caplan will perform Heretic in April 2024 at Symphony Space in New York, Bowdoin College in Maine, and Tufts University in Medford.
Altered Worlds promises to be a new and wonderful adventures for music and theatre lovers!
Richard Cameron-Wolfe, Composer
Jerry Johnson, Director
PROGRAM
Prelude N. 1 in C Major, BWV 846* – J.S. Bach (1685-1750)
Carnatic Prelude N. 1, After J.S. Bach* (2017) – Vineet Shende (b.1972)
The Legend of Hagoromo (1992) – Keigo Fujii (b.1956)
In A Landscape* (1948) – John Cage (1912-1992)
Heretic (2022) – Richard Cameron-Wolfe (b.1943)
LISTING:
Friday January 26 • 7:30pm
Salem State University in conjunction with the Music and Theater departments presents Aaron Larget-Caplan in Altered World, a solo program exploring transformation.
Composers: J.S. Bach, Vineet Shende, Keigo Fujii, John Cage, and the US premiere of Heretic – a micro opera by Richard Cameron-Wolfe – directed by Jerry Johnson (SSU Theater Faculty).
Information and Tickets: HERE ($10-15)
Location: Callan Studio Theatre, Salem State University, 352 Lafayette Street, Salem, MA 01970 (MAP)
Program Notes for the concert: https://alcguitar.com/blog/heretic-at-salem-state/
Prelude No. 1 in C Major, WTC Book 1, BWV 846* by J.S. Bach
The first prelude in The Well-Tempered Clavier comprises a simple arpeggio figure; the dramatic tension only builds through harmonic change. While a moment in time, the arpeggio feels eternal. Gounod based his ‘Ave Maria’ on this prelude. I raise the octave of the last measures for an ethereal conclusion. Recorded on Aaron’s 2022 album ‘God’s Time: Music of J.S. Bach on Guitar (Tiger Turn) SPOTIFY
Carnatic Prelude N. 1, After J.S, Bach* (2017) by Vineet Shende
Vineet Shende and Aaron
A measure for measure re-imagination of Bach’s Prelude N. 1 in C-Major, WTC I, BWV 846 as if Bach were from South India. A fusion of the Eastern melodic and rhythmic traditions of Carnatic music (raga – scale, taal – rhythmic cycle) and Western harmonic traditions.
Carnatic music does not use harmony as the western tradition, so Shende uses rhythmic flourishes to denote a cadence or phrase ending. The project will continue for a total of 12 Carnatic Preludes by Shende being paired with Larget-Caplan’s arrangements of the original Bach keyboard works for guitar.
The legend of Hagoromo (1992) by Keigo Fujii
Found in variation throughout Asia, the Hagoromo legend describes a young fisherman falling in love with a heavenly maiden who can fly when she wears her magical feathered kimono (Hagoromo). Wanting to prevent her from leaving him, he steals and hides her Hagoromo while she bathes under the autumn full moon. After a time, and unable to go home to the immortal world, she returns his love and they have a child together. While walking her young son, the boy sings a lullaby whose words describe where the Hagoromo is hidden. Donning it and robed in the blue of heaven she ascends again! But she cries in sadness, for she cannot bring her husband and son along. Lovesick and lonely as well, her husband plants the seed of a moonflower for her, and as her tears water it from the world above it grows into the heavens allowing the fisherman to climb up and join her; her tears becoming a rainbow. B
ased on a 16-bar song in the traditional Okinawan mode by Hiroshi Yamanoha (d.1991) about the Hagoromo legend, Keigo Fujii does not adhere strictly to the mode and incorporates many extended techniques and effects to create one of the 20th century’s great masterpieces. Recorded on Aaron’s 2013 album ‘The Legend of Hagoromo’ (Stone Records). SPOTIFY
In A Landscape* (1948) by John Cage, Arr. A. Larget-Caplan
Through composed, the composition can be divided into three parts by the repetition of the opening melodic figure and arpeggio. Choreographer Louise Lippold conceived of the 15 x 15 measures (5-7-3) rhythmic structure.
The work travels the length of the guitar and requires extensive use of campanella, natural and artificial harmonics, tambura, and peaceful control. The arrangement required multiple register adjustments, but no note changes. The most daunting of my Cage arrangements due to extended fixed gamut of tones and the use of two voices that need to resonate throughout, it is also the most lyrical of the mid-period works where one can hear the lines so reminiscent of Satie. I met Cage in Dream, but I fell in love with Cage through In A Landscape. Recorded on Aaron’s 2018 album ‘John. Cage. Guitar.’ (Stone Records) SPOTIFY
Heretic* (1994/2017/2022) by Richard Cameron-Wolfe
This Heretic speaks the unspeakable, thinks the unthinkable, and plays the unplayable. At the outset, Orthodoxy tries to stop him from speaking his first word.
At last, the Heretic addresses us, with “I want to tell you what’s going on here”, but immediately has second thoughts: “You don’t want to know.” He then moves uncomfortably close to the audience and, in a Mephistophelian tone, asks for our “trust”. Then, calmly and conversationally, he refers to Arthur Machen’s book The Hill of Dreams – its contents perhaps holding a key to the nature of the Heretic’s mental state (unreality/alienation). After a robotic, manic, minimalist rant, the Heretic abruptly begins to leave, pauses, and reluctantly returns, apparently to become simply a guitarist.
An extended, abstract, contrapuntal passage follows, punctuated however with comments from the Heretic – alternately introspective and communicative, about beauty, perfection, and art. But the Heretic is, as we suspected, quite mad, regretting this encounter. He pushes us away, turning inward – and we are released, liberated. This performance is the U.S. Premiere.
Heretic will be performed at Bowdoin College (April 6) Symphony Space in NYC (April 20), and Tufts University (April 26).
Larget-Caplan’s arrangements of John Cage’s piano music published by Edition Peters
Complete Concert Information: ALCGuitar.com/calendar
*more concerts are being added
I’m very excited to be performing three concerts of music featuring guitar with string trio (violin, viola, cello) with the exemplary musicians Robert Lehmann, Kimberly Lehmann, and Rebecca Hartka.
The program: “Dancing with Ancestors” – Music for Guitar and Strings from Latin America features Latin-American music for guitar and strings that explores the notion of music that dances with the ancestors.
**Music I Am Interview with Nicolás Lell Benavides: HERE
The piece is inspired by the painting “Resting” done in 1905 by Danish painter Feliz Krämer Vilhelm Hammershøi (1864-1916) depicting a woman seated in a chair, gazing at the wall. Her hair is gathered up in a bun and she is wearing a modest black skirt and a dark grey blouse with puffed sleeves and a scooped neck. Her apparel is conservative and humble. In my mind she sings a vain lullaby. She sings a vain lullaby in vain.
Rinconcito gets its name from one of my mother’s favorite songs: Rinconcito en el Cielo by Ramón Ayala. As a kid I always loved the idea of there being a little corner of heaven that one could visit with a friend or lover. Of course, as I grew older it dawned on me that the lyrics had a much more adult meaning! However, the image of a secret corner in the sky for friends has never left me. Though I don’t use any of the music from Ayala’s beautiful song, this piece is about ancestors in the way I imagined it as a child.
Rinconcito is about a meeting place for the dead and the living. My Grandpa Garcia, an accordionist who taught me to play rancheras and corridos as a kid, used to tell me that music is the only thing that people in heaven and people on earth share. When I was young, I imagined one could make music with the ancestors in heaven. This work takes elements of traditional New Mexican music but reconfigures them and distills them to the point of sometimes being unrecognizable.
In this piece, you will hear thirds and fourths that alternate both high and low. In my mind, the pure intervals of fourths and fifths are the intervals of the ancestors. Thirds and sixths are the intervals of the living. The piece opens up atmospherically, like an unsteady first contact, before a level of rapport is established and the thirds and fourths intermingle effortlessly. The primary guitar motive is constructed of a third and a fourth together, symbolizing the tangible shared music of heaven and earth. Before long the piece leaps into a fast dance, using common features of Southwestern music, and then the slower, atmospheric music returns, with the ancestors saying goodbye for now.
The work is inspired by my upbringing in New Mexico and my two grandfathers, one of whom passed away recently: Gilbert Benavides (1929-2018) and Eddie Garcia (1933-). They were and are as New Mexican as New Mexican can be and served as a strong cultural connection to the old way of life in the Land of Enchantment. As I have one grandparent left, I’ve become painfully aware of the fragility of our connection to the past and the need to actively maintain it. Each new generation inherits this link, and I hope through music like this to play my part in preserving it. Though I have until now infrequently looked inward toward my own culture for inspiration, I’ve very much enjoyed the process and hope that this is the beginning of a new series of pieces where I explore the theme of what it means to be New Mexican.
A big thank you to Left Coast and Will and Linda Schieber for making this commission possible.
– Nicolas Lell Benavides
Solo, Chamber Music, Choir + Guitar, and Master Classes
For information on individual concerts please go to: https://alcguitar.com/calendar.php
More events being added.
PROGRAM
sweet nuance (2022) Aaron Larget-Caplan (b. 1978)
Prelude in C Major, BWV 846* J.S. Bach (1685-1750)
Carnatic Prelude N. 1, After J.S. Bach* (2017) Vineet Shende (b. 1972)
Two New Lullaby Project Solos
moving still (2021) Larget-Caplan
Chromatic Fantasy in D Minor, BWV 903* Bach
In A Landscape* (1948) John Cage (1912-1982)
Only Winter Certainties (2023) World Premiere Daniel Felsenfeld (b. 1970)
Mantilla de Feria Esteban de Sanlúcar (1910-1989)
Sevilla* Isaac Albéniz (1860-1909)
*Written for or arranged by Aaron Larget-Caplan
**All NYC Premieres except Sanlúcar
Photos from the Bargemusic Concert with composers and friends
A wonder of gratitude to the people who helped make my 2-weeks in Southern California a great adventure!
There is not enough room for all the pictures and pages could be written about each of the Artists and amazing people I was able to meet and collaborate with. Please see below for links to many of them.
Until the next concert,
Aaron
Here are some worth checking out in the photos:
Robert and Katherine Bender – Karob Studios
Buzz Gravelle – Cal Poly Pomona faculty and Fretless guitars
Peter Yates – Multi-media Artist, Guitarist, UCLA faculty
Adrienne Albert – Composer
Cellista – Musician & Performance Artist
Tom Flaherty – Composer, Pomona Faculty
Gisel Vincent – Artist
Some picture locations:
Athenaeum Music & Arts Library, La Jolla
Schulman Auditorium, Carlsbad
Tacos on the side of the road, Santa Monica
Lofty Coffee, Encinitas