Omni Foundation: Three Videos; One Composer

Composer Stephen Goss (photograph provided by the Omni Foundation for the Performing Arts)

This coming Sunday, OMNI on-Location will serve up an embarrassment of riches. Three new videos will be added to the library, each presenting a different composition by Stephen Goss performed by guitarist Francisco Correa. For those unfamiliar with the name, Goss’ music receives hundreds of performances; and he is recognized for advancing the repertoire of solo guitar music. His music has been appreciated on an international scale, including venues such as Carnegie Hall (New York), Wigmore Hall and the Royal Albert Hall (London), and the Tchaikovsky Hall (Moscow).

The first of the compositions to be featured is “Paganini Variations.” The theme for the variations was taken from the first in a collection of eighteen sonatas by Niccolò Paganini given the title Centone di sonate. The variations themselves were originally scored for violin, mandolin, and guitar. However, on this video Goss gives a duo performance with violinist Max Baille. He responded to the absence of the mandolin by delivering a more virtuosic undertaking.

The second video will present “Seurat’s Bathers,” one of the nine movements from a suite entitled Wynwood Walls. The entire composition was conceived with the intention that paintings by Seurat would be projected behind the ensemble, consisting of guitar and string quartet. The video, on the other hand, was made in “studio” conditions. Goss is joined by the members of Asaka Quartet: violinists Iona McDonald and Eriol Guo Yu, violist Susie Xin He, and cellist Jonathan Ho Man Fong.

The final video couples two well-known solo guitar pieces in B minor with a flute part. The two pieces are the 22nd étude in Fernando Sor’s Opus 35 and the concluding movement (Allegro Solemne) in Agustín Barrios’s suite La Catedral. Flautist Emily Andrews superimposes her own new material in her performance with Goss.

All three of the videos will be available for viewing any time after 10 a.m. on Sunday, June 16. The individual Web pages can be found in the hyperlinks attached to the preceding three paragraphs. As usual, each of the pages will support live chat as part of the viewing experience.