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The International Conservatory of Music Media Reviews
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Classical guitarist-composer Roland Dyens's Marlow Guitar Series recital at Westmoreland Church on Friday revealed a superb colorist. His myriad shades of timbre -- many mere whispers of sound that made one thankful for the discreet miking of his instrument -- differentiated inner voices and distilled considerable atmosphere in a program of his own compositions, arrangements and improvisations.
As a composer, Dyens drew from a varied palette, evoking Latin popular song in "Valse des Anges," creating a mildly dissonant cat-and-mouse chase in "Anyway," and mimicking a battery of Brazilian percussion instruments in "Berimbau." As a performer, he set himself -- and handsomely met -- an array of challenges, from playing countermelodies on the fret-board with the left hand to pulling the strings into clusters to create sonorities that evoked a steel drum. Such was the range of color and articulation in his arrangement of Jobim's "Felicidade," he sounded uncannily like a full jazz ensemble. Fernando Sor's "Grand Solo" (the only piece on the program entirely by someone else) showed chinks in Dyens's armor, notably buzzing strings, poorly articulated ornaments and expressive devices out of keeping with the music's early-19th-century idiom. Yet, while Dyens displayed a similar disregard for Sor's classicism in his Piazzolla-cum-Hollywood arrangements for guitar and string quartet of seven of Sor's solo Etudes. They were witty, gorgeous, skillfully written reimaginings, performed with affection by Dyens and the fine Sunrise String Quartet. -- Washington Post Review – Joe Banno - PERFORMING ARTS Section - Monday, January 28, 2008 
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