Phil Mathieu: Press

Phil Gazette

From folksters like Bob Dylan to classical gods
like Andrés Segovia, artists have applied the
acoustic guitar in just about every way imaginable.
But until recently, it hasn’t been used as
a chamber music instrument. Phil Mathieu is
trying to change that. In 2008, the Rockville native
released “Chamber Music for Guitar.” The
album featured Dan Henderson on cello and
Carolyn Oh on flute.
“Everyone takes on an unusual role,” Mathieu
explains. “The cello is actually playing more
melody and counterpoint. I’m playing a lot of
the bass and cello chord parts. And the flute is a
natural melody instrument. Just with a trio, we
kind of represent all the colors and textures of
an orchestra.”
Mathieu studied at Montgomery College and
earned a music degree at George Mason University.
After graduation, he filled in for John
E. Marlow in Charlie Byrd’s Washington Guitar
Quintet. The two struck up a close friendship,
and when Marlow passed away in 1992,
Mathieu stepped in to take his mentor’s place
fulltime.
“He liked my versatility,” Mathieu recalls. “I
play a lot of his original music and some of his
arrangements. I’m probably the only one that’s
pursued that.”
As part of the Musical Arts International concert
series, Mathieu, cellist Kerry Van Laanen
and flutist Carolyn Oh are performing at Calvary
Lutheran Church Saturday night. The
program will include arrangements of classical
pieces dating back to the Renaissance as well as
newer songs by Mathieu and Marlow. Because
Henderson has moved out of the area since the
album’s release, Catholic University alumnus
Van Laanen will fill her spot. The Oklahoma
native has shared a musical partnership with
Mathieu for nearly 20 years.
earned Mathieu a Washington Area Music
Award (Wammie) for Classical Music Recording
of the Year.
“It’s not just that the flute has the melody and
the cello has the bass line. There’s a lot of give
and take,” Carolyn Oh remarks. “We cover a
lot of different styles.”
Oh was born in Korea and moved to the U.S. at
age 10. Around that time, she began playing the
flute. Her talent carried her from a bachelor’s
degree at Peabody to a doctorate at Catholic
University. She now serves on the Montgomery
College faculty.
Saturday’s concert is Oh’s first collaboration
with Van Laanen. The cellist is impressed by
the flutist’s flawless tone and ability to take on
different styles.
“She has a beautiful sound,” gushes Van
Laanen. “It’s very nice to work with. [Mathieu
and Oh] play really well together.”
The trio may not have performed together as
a chamber ensemble, but hopefully Saturday’s
performance won’t be their last. They make
beautiful music together.
This trio’s a treat
Takoma Park
musician writes
new arrangements
for guitar
BY JORDAN EDWARDS
STAFF WRITER
MUSIC & NIGHTLIFE
See Phil Mathieu with Carolyn Oh and Kerry
Van Laanen at 8 p.m. Saturday at Calvary
Lutheran Church, 9545 Georgia Ave.,
Silver Spring. Tickets are $20, $15 for
students and seniors. Call 301-933-3715 or
visit www.musicalartsinternational.org.
“It’s beautiful,” Van Laanen says of the instrumental
combination. “It means that I have to
play differently than in other chamber music
groups that I play in. I’m just trying to adapt.”
The music they make is a sharp contrast to Van
Laanen’s gig as cellist for QuinTango. That
group plays fiery renditions of traditional tango
music.
“It’s very free,” she says. “I get to interpret and
play things any way I want.”
Mathieu now lives in Takoma Park and plays
every plucked string instrument from banjo
to 12-string guitar. Lately, chamber music has
consumed much of his time. That doesn’t mean
he doesn’t break free for other musical adventures.
When a band pulls up to the Kennedy
Center and needs a guitarist, Mathieu is often
summoned.
“I’ve always played a lot of different styles,” he
says. “I grew up playing jazz and pop. I think
I’d be bored if I committed to one style.”
It may come as a surprise that composers
haven’t included the guitar in small ensembles,
especially given the classical music industry’s
willingness to experiment. Johns Hopkins’ Peabody
Institute in Baltimore, for example, boasts
a 20-piece orchestra made entirely of guitars.
But giants like Segovia preferred concertos,
and Mathieu says composers have mostly stuck
to duets for flute and guitar.
“I feel like the guitar’s been neglected,” he
explains. “Segovia brought
the solo guitar to the
classical world, but
Segovia wasn’t fond of
chamber music. Then
you have concertos with
a full orchestra. Not
everyone can do that.
I’ve always wanted
to have the guitar shown
more in a regular
chamber music
setting.”
The unique
combination of
instruments and
intricate
compositions
on “Chamber
Music for
Guitar”
Flutist Carolyn Oh and guitarist Phil Mathieu played together on the Washington Area Music Award-winning CD “Chamber Music with
Guitar.” See them Saturday night at Calvary Lutheran Church in Silver Spring.

PHIL MATHIEU AND GIORGIA
CAVALLARO
“American Music
for Two Guitars”
Independent
Who is William Foden and why
have guitarists Phil Mathieu
and Giorgia Cavallaro devoted
nearly an entire album to his
genius? Born in 1860, the St. Louis
native is remembered in guitar circles
— to the extent that he's
remembered at all these days —
for his virtuosity, compositions,
arrangements and instructional
method books. Mathieu and
Cavallaro are a pair of latter disciples,
custodians of a rich but
underappreciated legacy.
Though far removed from his
twangy alliance with Ruthie and
the Wranglers, Mathieu sounds
comfortable in this setting. He and
Cavallaro are well matched, playing
nylon string guitars throughout
most of their recording,
“American Music for Two Guitars.”
Foden, who died shortly after
World War II, is represented by a
pair of lengthy interludes. The
seven part “Neo Baroque-Suite”
finds the guitarists nimbly moving
through a colorful assortment of
French and Italian dances, from
the intricately woven “Allemande”
to the neatly harmonized
“Gavotte” to the courtly coda
“Bouree.” The second section is
devoted to songs and dances that
radiate more homegrown charm
and features previously unrecorded
Foden pieces, including the
unabashedly romantic “Flowery
Dell Waltz.” Whether composing
or arranging, Foden apparently
had a gift for making the most of
melodies, allowing them to linger
in the air. Mathieu and Cavallaro
follow suit, honoring his memory
and work with an appropriately
lyrical touch. The album closes, by
the way, with a rootsy twist.
Mathieu's own “Sugarloaf Rag” is
brightly orchestrated by the duo’s
steel string and resonator guitars.
-- Mike Joyce
Friday, January 7, 2005
O N T H E T O W N

Monday, January 10, 2005
Style
Guitarists Phil Mathieu and Giorgia
Cavallaro boiled down the raison
d'etre of their selections Saturday at
Strathmore Hall by reciting the Walt
Whitman lines “I hear America singing,
the varied carols I hear.” Like
Whitman, whose poem touched on the
broadly democratic vistas of America,
the duo presented music celebrating its
more commonplace beauties. It was a
program that reminisced on homespun
Hausmusik—most of it originally
meant for a guitar duo—which invited
Americans to sing along and dance as
the 19th century edged into the 20th.
Strathmore’s massive stone fireplace
behind the guitarists conjured visions
of family and friends gathered around
as they played works by William Foden
(1860-1947) that Mathieu discovered
recently. Six “Songs and Dances”—
waltzes, a polka, a fandango—resonated
a pleasant archaic tunefulness that
other American composers such as
Louis Moreau Gottschalk earlier and
Edward MacDowell, Foden’s exact
contemporary, forged into solid art
music. Foden’s “Neo-Baroque Suite”
aspired to re-create Bach’s era, but it
lacks that fundamental dissonance
impelling the older scores.
Another curious but slightly more
substantial ode to Bach followed intermission:
Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s
Prelude and Fugue in A from his
“Well-Tempered Guitars,” Op. 199.
The first piece was a grotesque takeoff
on Gershwin’s “I Got Plenty o’ Nothin’”
from “Porgy and Bess.” Cavallaro was at
her best in her arrangement of
“Shenandoah,” while both musicians
rendered Mathieu’s setting of “ ’Tis the
Last Rose of Summer” with glowing
timbres.
– Cecelia Porter
Phil Mathieu, Giorgia Cavallaro
Phil Mathieu and Giorgia Cavallaro