L.A. GUITAR QUARTET AT REDLANDS BOWL

Redlands Bowl can seem disconcertingly remote to a habitue of the better-known Bowl in Hollywood. Not so much in the mileage, as in a sense of time past.

The ambiance brings to mind social conventions of the ‘50s. Tuesday evening began with a community sing-along, followed by an extended effort to identify out-of-towners and their points of origin (honors for distance went to visitors from Africa and India). And in Redlands, the audience rose not only to sing the National Anthem, but to recite the Pledge of Allegiance as well.

Not all was unfamiliar. Redlands Bowl has its own parking problems, talkative audience members and aerial nuisances. But it was all free (contributions solicited).

And Tuesday, Redlands had the Los Angeles Guitar Quartet. The confident, polished, USC-trained ensemble--Anisa Angarola, John Dearman, William Kanengiser and Scott Tennant--often seems better appreciated away than at home.

The young group certainly has an attractive songbook. The “Ritual Fire Dance” from Falla’s “El Amor Brujo” is a guitar ensemble staple, but the Los Angeles four offered the complete ballet score in sophisticated, evocative transcriptions, mostly by Kanengiser.

Some condescension seemed apparent in program changes. The Prelude to Chapi’s zarzuela “La Revoltosa,” long a Romeros’ favorite, opened the program in lieu of three Renaissance dances, and Leo Brouwer’s impressionistic “Cuban Landscape With Rain” replaced two other contemporary works.

Performances were typically skillful, quick and alert to the nuances of wide-ranging styles, including that of a Mozart Divertimento. Balances went sometimes askew but that could be due to closely miked amplification.

Kanengiser’s arranging talents were again apparent in three pieces by Copland, although his research may be suspect in confusing Shakers with Quakers while introducing “Simple Gifts.” Hearty applause from the large crowd elicited one encore: a finger-pickin’-good medley of such down-home favorites as the themes from “Bonanza” and “The Beverly Hillbillies.”