{"id":1094,"date":"2015-03-04T12:17:58","date_gmt":"2015-03-04T20:17:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/classicalguitarmagazine.com\/?p=1094"},"modified":"2018-03-14T16:33:55","modified_gmt":"2018-03-14T23:33:55","slug":"the-los-angeles-guitar-quartets-scott-tennant-looks-at-the-groups-35-year-run","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/classicalguitarmagazine.com\/the-los-angeles-guitar-quartets-scott-tennant-looks-at-the-groups-35-year-run\/","title":{"rendered":"The Los Angeles Guitar Quartet’s Scott Tennant looks at the group’s 35-year run"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Process Never Stops, by Mark Ari<\/strong><\/h3>\n
\"\"
left to right: Scott Tennant, John Dearman, William Kanengiser, Matthew Greif<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

After 35 years, the Los Angeles Guitar Quartet continues to grow a legacy of recordings on major labels, in the process earning two Grammy nominations, and a 2005 Grammy award for its Guitar Heroes<\/em><\/strong><\/a> CD (Telarc). The quartet continues to play to sold-out houses, delighting audiences and critics alike with programs that range from classical masterworks to innovative interpretations of contemporary and ethnic music.<\/p>\n

It hasn\u2019t always been easy.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have to love what you do,\u201d LAGQ member Scott Tennant says. \u201cA musician is always on call. There\u2019s a process that never stops.\u201d<\/p>\n

For LAGQ, that process began in 1980 when classical and flamenco great Pepe Romero hand picked four University of Southern California guitar students\u2014Tennant, Anisa Angarola, John Dearman, and William Kanengiser\u2014for a quartet he wanted to coach. Since then, with Andrew York replacing Angarola in 1989 and Matthew Greif taking York\u2019s seat in 2006, the LAGQ has evolved from a band of young musicians doing educational programs in public schools to one of the nation\u2019s preeminent concert ensembles. Along the way, LAGQ has demonstrated what it takes to sustain long-lasting and endlessly inventive collaboration.<\/p>\n

Tennant spoke to CG<\/em> by phone from his home in the Los Angeles area, just as a Kickstarter campaign for LAGQ\u2019s latest recording project, aptly titled New Renaissance<\/em><\/strong><\/a>, was drawing to a close.<\/p>\n

\n

Thirty-five years is a pretty good run. Have there been difficulties?
\n<\/strong>There are always difficulties. For instance, in 1981, when Anisa was with the group and we were calling ourselves the USC Quartet, we toured Durango and the Yucatan [Mexico] for the summer. I was 19. We did 48 concerts in five weeks. It was very intense. And, man, there were some hardships. One thing literally scarred me for life. We had a very rare free day. We didn\u2019t have to play until that night. We were in the jungle near M\u00e9rida, so we decided to go to the beach. And I, Mr. Gringo, spent too much time in the water without sunscreen. That night I had huge blisters all over my arms and shoulders. I had to get it treated after the concert.<\/p>\n

You performed like that?
\n<\/strong>Yeah, second degree burns all over me. Next morning, I\u2019m lying face down on this table next to a garbage can in this clinic, and they lance all of these bubbles and pour alcohol and scrub my back. It was terrible. They bandaged me like a mummy. And that afternoon, we played a gig. Lots of things like that happened. You wind up deciding whether or not this is something you want to do for a living. That tour in Mexico is what solidified the group.<\/p>\n

I guess it did. You\u2019ve stuck together.
\n<\/strong>I always call the other guys my brothers.<\/p>\n

Now that I\u2019m in my 50s, I can look back and say we grew up together. But we can annoy one another, too. That\u2019s one of the big things we learned long ago. You have to give everybody their own space. That\u2019s hard for musicians. Something is always going on. You can\u2019t just turn off the light and close the door. But at some point, you have to go home.<\/p>\n

\"LAGQ_img2\"
35 Years of Los Angeles Guitar Quartet<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I suppose it takes a lot of compromise.
\n<\/strong>It has to be democratic. Everyone isn\u2019t always happy. If you want to speak with one voice, you have to make compromises. That\u2019s something we\u2019re all still getting used to. I\u2019m a very non-verbal person when I practice. Yet, when you\u2019re in a group, you have to be able to talk about your ideas and explain them, come up with solutions and tell everybody. That\u2019s hard for me.<\/p>\n

Was there a turning point when you knew you had something special with\u00a0<\/strong>the quartet?
\n<\/strong>When Andy joined the group we started exploring all kinds of styles. He was so good at jazz and bluegrass picking. He and Bill had rock \u2019n\u2019 roll backgrounds. We\u2019re all interested in different musical styles, different ethnic cultures and musical cultures. We let ourselves have the freedom to explore. That\u2019s when we really stepped up the game.<\/p>\n

Was it a rough spot when Andy left after 17 years?
\n<\/strong>It was. Around 2005, we were just so tired. For about ten months, we didn\u2019t travel or tour. Andy decided he wanted to do other things. But Matt came in. He had all those improvisatory chops, and he came from a background of multi faceted styles. His mom [Jana Jae Greif] is a famous country fiddle player from back in the days of Hee Haw<\/i> [a country music and comedy TV show].<\/p>\n

\u2018When you\u2019re in a group,
\nyou have to be able to talk
\nabout your ideas\u00a0and explain them.\u2019<\/b><\/h1>\n
-SCOTT TENNANT, LAGQ<\/b><\/span><\/h5>\n

 <\/p>\n

Let\u2019s talk about the new project,\u00a0New Renaissance<\/em><\/a>. Why go indie?
\n<\/strong>We\u2019re learning from our students. Our last label, Telarc, would take a product we had already produced and market it. We were selling more at our concerts than through record stores, so we said, let\u2019s just self-produce. We\u2019ll have control and we\u2019ll own the product. We had this set of music we\u2019d been playing called \u201cMusic from the Time of Cervantes.\u201d These are pieces Bill arranged of wonderful music dating back to Renaissance Spain. Bill had also prepared this 70-minute script for voice-over, based on Don Quixote<\/i>. It premiered with John Cleese. What a thrill that was. It was one of the highlights of my life, working with one of my absolute heroes. We wanted to record some of that, and we had this new piece by Ian Krouse, based on music by English composer John Dowland. To flesh things out, we asked Du\u0161an Bogdanovic to write something for us, and I transcribed some French Renaissance quartets. It\u2019s all recorded. With New\u00a0<\/i>Renaissance<\/i>, we got to do what we wanted to do, because we did it ourselves. It was a labor of love.<\/p>\n

\"Scotts_guitar\"
Phillip Woodfield guitar \u201cErda\u201d Grand Concert II model, number 322<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Looking back over the last 35 years, do you find something stands out for you?
\n<\/strong>The audiences. People come up to us and say, \u201cYou came to my school back in 1986, and now I play cello with such and such orchestra, and thanks for that.\u201d That\u2019s awesome. You don\u2019t think about that kind of stuff when you\u2019re playing. It lets you know that you\u2019ve touched somebody and that it\u2019s made a difference.<\/p>\n

You can hear the<\/em> New Renaissance album in its entirety on YouTube<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n

WHAT THE LAGQ PLAYS<\/h3>\n

Scott Tennant favors a guitar built by Philip Woodfield; Bill Kanengiser plays Thomas Humphrey guitars; John Dearman plays a Thomas Fredholm seven-string; and Matt Grief is playing a double-top built by Toni M\u00fcller. The quartet uses D\u2019Addario and Savarez strings. They always carry the same KM-184 Neumann microphones they have used for many years. One thing still eludes them, though: \u201cWe\u2019ve all had our guitars broken or smashed in some of the most expensive guitar cases built,\u201d Tennant says. \u201cAn ultimate guitar case would be great. One with wheels. That\u2019d be kind of cool.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mark Ari is a writer, painter, and musician who teaches at the University of North Florida.<\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

This article was originally published in the Spring 2015 issue of Classical Guitar<\/em> magazine.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"CG_377\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The issue also features Sharon Isbin, Frantz Casseus, a special focus on guitar festivals & competitions, and much more. Click here for more information on the issue.<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Process Never Stops, by Mark Ari After 35 years, the Los Angeles Guitar Quartet continues to grow a legacy of recordings on major labels, in the process earning two Grammy nominations, and a 2005 Grammy award for its Guitar Heroes CD (Telarc). The quartet continues to play to sold-out houses, delighting audiences and critics alike with programs that range from classical masterworks to innovative interpretations of contemporary and ethnic music. It hasn\u2019t always been easy. \u201cYou have to love […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":1107,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1094","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-stories"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/classicalguitarmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/LAGQ_img_txt.jpg?fit=800%2C564&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/classicalguitarmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1094","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/classicalguitarmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/classicalguitarmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/classicalguitarmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/classicalguitarmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1094"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/classicalguitarmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1094\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/classicalguitarmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1107"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/classicalguitarmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1094"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/classicalguitarmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1094"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/classicalguitarmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1094"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}