International Guitar Night at Herbst

Last night in Herbst Theatre, International Guitar Night returned for its first appearance since February of 2019. What had thrived as a global annual event, presented in San Francisco by the Omni Foundation for the Performing Arts, had to yield to COVID. Last night it was back “on the road again.” For those unfamiliar with the program, it showcases four guitarists, each from a different country and each prolific in a different genre.

Collage of the International Guitar Night musicians (clockwise from upper right): Luca Stricagnoli, Minnie Marks, Thu Le, and Marco Pereira (photographs courtesy of Harbury Publicity)

It seemed fortuitous that last night’s program was led off by Italian guitarist Luca Stricagnoli, who had contributed to the 2019 program. He was followed, in order of appearance, by Thu Le (Vietnam), Minnie Marks (Australia), and Marco Pereira (Brazil). Each performer took a solo set, after which the first half of the program concluded with “all hands” jamming. (The second half was similarly organized, but my head was already filled with the abundance of the first half to allow for any further input!)

Stricagnoli brought electric rock to the party. He will be best remembered for playing an instrument with three necks, one “standard,” one variant on that standard, and one for bass with the lowest pitch at the bottom of the neck, rather than the other way around. It would be fair to say that Stricagnoli was prodigious in his capacities for invention, which had more to do with sonorities and dazzlingly elaborate riffs than with head-banging noise (much to my personal relief).

Somewhat to my surprise, Le’s repertoire was tango. Having spent time in Ho Chi Minh City, Hanoi, and Da Nang, I was expecting my nostalgia to be tweaked by some genre of Vietnamese music. To be fair, however, I am probably more nostalgic about the tango genre; and I had no complaints about her command of that repertoire, even if it involved only two tunes!

Like Stricagnoli, Marks was inspired by American music. Her genre, however, was blues, rather than rock. As might be guessed, she added vocals to her guitar work. If that were not enough, she used her feet to perform on a reduced drum kit. Watching her handle all that was as engaging as listening to the results.

The final solo was taken by the “senior member” of the group. Pereira’s two selections highlighted two of the major Brazilian composers from the first half of the twentieth century, Dilermando Reis and Baden Powell. While I was familiar with both names, these were “first contact” experiences with their respective compositions. The “all hands jam” then wrapped up the first half of the program, and I was ready to go home and let the experience sink in deeply enough for me to do justice to my account of the evening!