{"id":14264,"date":"2020-01-26T16:28:05","date_gmt":"2020-01-27T00:28:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/classicalguitarmagazine.com\/?p=14264"},"modified":"2020-01-26T16:28:05","modified_gmt":"2020-01-27T00:28:05","slug":"video-pick-of-the-week-matt-withers-plays-don-mcleans-vincent-starry-starry-night","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/classicalguitarmagazine.com\/video-pick-of-the-week-matt-withers-plays-don-mcleans-vincent-starry-starry-night\/","title":{"rendered":"Video Pick of the Week: Matt Withers Plays Don McLean&#8217;s &#8216;Vincent (Starry, Starry Night)&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-14328\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/classicalguitarmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/Withers-Vincent-e1580084468285.jpg?resize=800%2C620&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"620\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Our Video Pick this week is a lovely version of American folk-pop singer-songwriter <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Don_McLean\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Don McLean&#8217;<\/a>s early 1970s classic &#8220;Vincent (Starry, Starry Night)&#8221; rendered by the excellent Australian guitarist <a href=\"https:\/\/mattwithers.com.au\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Matt Withers<\/a> (whom <a href=\"https:\/\/classicalguitarmagazine.com\/commitment-to-collaboration-matt-withers-and-the-acacia-quartet-are-ambassadors-for-new-australian-music\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">we wrote about last year<\/a> in conjunction with his superb\u00a0 album with the Acacia Quartet, <em>Imaginations<\/em>). The tribute to Vincent van Gogh, which first appeared on McLean&#8217;s smash hit <em>American Pie<\/em> album, turns up in Withers&#8217; repertoire in the arrangement devised by the great Chet Atkins. (Matt&#8217;s version appeared on his most recent solo effort, 2017&#8217;s <em>Songs of Yesterday<\/em>.) In the video\u2014which was shot at <a href=\"https:\/\/tuliptopgardens.com.au\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Tulip Top Gardens<\/a> in New South Wales (a bit north of Canberra, Australia), and augmented with Van Gogh-inspired &#8220;animations&#8221; by Paul Martin\u2014Withers is playing a guitar built by Australian luthier <a href=\"http:\/\/www.gregsmallmanguitar.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Greg Smallman<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>As always, there is other news to impart from the perennially busy guitarist. Friday, January 31 is the deadline for entries in the 2020 <a href=\"https:\/\/mattwithers.com.au\/compositioncompetition\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Matt Withers Australian Music Composition Contest<\/a>. In April, Matt is going into the studio to record an album with pianist Sally Whitwell. And this summer, we can also expect to hear a new album on the Naxos label from <a href=\"https:\/\/guitartrek.net\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Guitar Trek<\/a>, the amazing quartet that features, Withers, Timothy Kain, Minh Le Hoang, and new addition Callum Henshaw.<\/p>\n<p>Last but <em>definitely<\/em> not least, congratulations and hearty huzzahs are in order for Matt and his wife Emma on the birth of their first child, the completely adorable Edward Michael Withers, on January 17, 2020! Let the sleep deprivation begin! \u2014<em>Blair Jackson<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Our Video Pick this week is a lovely version of American folk-pop singer-songwriter Don McLean&#8217;s early 1970s classic &#8220;Vincent (Starry, Starry Night)&#8221; rendered by the excellent Australian guitarist Matt Withers (whom we wrote about last year in conjunction with his superb\u00a0 album with the Acacia Quartet, Imaginations). The tribute to Vincent van Gogh, which first appeared on McLean&#8217;s smash hit American Pie album, turns up in Withers&#8217; repertoire in the arrangement devised by the great Chet Atkins. (Matt&#8217;s version appeared [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":14328,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"video","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":[6,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14264","post","type-post","status-publish","format-video","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-watch","post_format-post-format-video"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/classicalguitarmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/Withers-Vincent-e1580084468285.jpg?fit=800%2C620&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/classicalguitarmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14264","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\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/classicalguitarmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14264"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/classicalguitarmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14264\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/classicalguitarmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14328"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/classicalguitarmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14264"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/classicalguitarmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14264"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/classicalguitarmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14264"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}