Friday, November 13, 1998
Alumnus strums into UCLA with style
MUSIC: Guitarist Elgart improvises own pieces, classics at
Schoenberg
By Harshan Jeyakumar
Daily Bruin Contributor
Most potential artists either discover their own talents or are
discovered by someone else at a young age. After many years they
also receive the golden opportunity, the "big break," that puts
them over the edge into the spotlight. Matthew Elgart, a musician
performing in Schoenberg Hall this weekend, however, needed neither
of these phenomena to work his way into success as a classical
guitarist.
A UCLA alumnus, Elgart will be returning to his alma mater to
perform pieces written by Bach, various Renaissance composers and
himself this Saturday at the Jan Popper Theater.
"I’ve just always done it, since I was a young kid," Elgart said
of his musical inclination. "My father is an artist; my entire
family is geared toward the arts. I have two cousins who were big
band people and another cousin who is a fine drummer in
Germany."
Elgart was drawn to UCLA’s music department by the late Ted
Norman, who was the head of the department during Elgart’s career
as a college student. But his musical career began long before
that. With long-time friend Peter Yates, he formed the Elgart-Yates
guitar duo in 1975 and has been performing ever since.
"We go to Europe every year, but one of the main places we play
is UCLA, because Peter teaches here," said Elgart, referring to
Yates’s position as head of the guitar department.
The two were fellow students for a brief period of time, and
they proceeded to earn their masters and doctoral degrees together.
With the help of Norman, they began to travel to Europe for
performances, a trip they have now managed 15 times to date.
Elgart is a composer, in addition to a musician, which is
somewhat rare in the genre of classical music.
"Actually, it’s not so rare for guitarists. There are a lot of
classical guitarists who do write their own music as well as
perform; but generally speaking things tend to be very
specialized," Elgart said. "There’s so much time involved in being
a performer, in terms of practicing, that people usually specialize
and don’t really venture off to other territory."
Elgart’s performance at UCLA will be completely solo, which is
something that he doesn’t often get a chance to do. Recently his
work has been split about equally between his duo with Yates and
solo performances.
"One thing that I do is work with lots and lots of composers all
over the world. This program I’m going to be doing now is virtually
all old music," explains Elgart.
In other words, the composers are all long dead, such as Bach,
Villa-Lobos, Lauro and Milan. There will be three short pieces that
originated in the 20th century proper  one is by Elgart
himself, and the others are by Josef Hauer, an Australian
composer.
Elgart is not restricted to just imitating the work of previous
composers.
"There’s a lot of different approaches that one can take. The
fact is that every player, if he gets involved in the music, adds
something, although I don’t think it necessarily translates so much
in terms of notes," said Elgart. "A classical score is kind of like
a very detailed plan. Or, if you like, it’s akin to Shakespeare.
It’s like a little play  each one tells a story. How you
interpret it has to do with your training and mostly your emotions,
in terms of how you relate to the piece and what you think it means
to you."
"(Elgart) has a lot of variety in his performances," said Yates
of his partner. "He is quite a Bach expert; his renditions range
from serious to lighthearted. He brings a particularly coloristic
approach to his work."
"Improvisation, personal training, and style manifest themselves
in subtle ways," explained Elgart. "But these aspects are no less
obvious, I think, to even untrained listeners."
Elgart has put on a variety of events for UCLA, and one that he
is quite proud of is his participation in the Segovia Project.
Andrees Segovia was the main classical guitarist of the 20th
century. The project, a tribute to Segovia’s work, included a
performance incorporating one of Segovia’s guitars, lent to the
project by the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art.
"I had the pleasure of doing the pre-concert talk for that at
the Wadsworth Theater," said Elgart.
Elgart can include international acclaim in his resume, too. He
vividly remembers playing in Amsterdam in the Gaudeamus Festival, a
recently started music festivity that puts on a large amount of
concerts in a two-week period. Every year, it attracts elite
musicians from around the globe, including places like the Royal
Conservatory in England, Spain, Israel, Japan and China.
"Playing for such a select group and having it go over well was
particularly gratifying because there were some very laudable
people there," Elgart said. "It’s also a lot of fun."
MUSIC: UCLA alumnus Matthew Elgart performs at Jan Popper
Theater in Shoenberg Hall Saturday at 8 p.m. Tickets are $7 for
general admission and $3 for students and seniors. For more
information, call 825-4761. To order tickets, call 825-2101.
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