Fort Worth — The Grammy-winning Los Angeles Guitar Quartet revels in breaking new ground. Based on the guitar ensemble that was established by the world-famous Romeros, LAGQ covers the standard repertoire, but also includes Latin, African, Asian, Irish, folk and American classics.
As the group returns to North Texas on the Allegro Guitar Series, performing Sunday night in Fort Worth and Tuesday in Dallas, member William Kanengiser said there's a reason the group is so diverse.
"The history of our group tied up with the Romeros, of course. We were formed as an outcropping of a class Pepe [Romero] was teaching at UCLA called, what else, 'guitar ensembles.' When we started we were Romeros lite," Kanengiser says with a laugh. "It didn't take us long to discover our own identity in terms of repertoire and style of playing. Of course, it was inevitable that we would set off on our own individual path. The Romeros come from a completely different musical background. They developed in Spain in the '50s while we grew up on good ol' American rock and roll and blues."
It is a busy life. The members of the LAGQ—which also includes Scott Tennant, John Dearman and Matthew Greif—spend months on the road touring. They also have a studio full of students and some hold university positions. How do they manage all of this?
"It works out that my teaching is in the middle of the week and tour is on weekends," Kanengiser says. "We can always move students around and there are some other fine guitarists that can fill in. Students are forgiving. In a way students, glad to have teachers that are out in the world actually playing instead of pontificating."
Of course, there is little original repertoire for a guitar quartet. Kanengiser has had a prominent spot in filling that void, doing the lion's share of arranging. The other members contribute as well.
The challenges of this task are obvious.
"You can't walk into the local library, like the members of a string quartet, and find rows and rows of masterpieces," Kanengiser said. "We found, by trial and error, what kinds of pieces work and what didn't."
Their first major work—an arrangement of El Amor Brujo, a ballet by Manuel de Falla [1876-1946]—will be performed here this week. In concert, Kanengiser briefly introduces it.
"Then I try to give the audience some musical landmarks to listen for as the story progresses," he says before adding, with a laugh, "...no dancing allowed."
That may be difficult. El Amor Brujo is really a flamenco piece but De Falla wrote it for full orchestra. The music is irrevocably tied to the flamenco dance.
"No matter what we do we can never catch the color of de Falla's orchestra. But, when you really think about it, he was trying capture what we are doing and we are trying to capture how he captured it," he says with only a trace of wry irony.
The reminder of the program will be just as fascinating. They will open with "Two African Pieces" by Kanengiser. From there, it will go to "Three Post-Bop Classics" which features music by Miles Davis and John Coltrane. Very un-Romero stuff. The program will end with Kanengiser's take on the music from Bizet's opera Carmen. Lots more Spanish music resides there, including the Habanera and Seguidilla, both of which have come into the public psyche to the point of becoming ring tones.
◊ The Los Angeles Guitar Quartet performs 7:30 p.m. Sunday at the Fort Worth Community Arts Center's Scott Theatre, and then 7:30 p.m. Tuesday (Valentine's Day) at Caruth Auditorium on the campus of Southern Methodist University. 
