Music Reviews : Amsterdam Guitar Trio at Saddleback College

The Amsterdam Guitar Trio is both audacious and charming. Helenus de Rijke, Olga Franssen and Johan Dorrestein proved this Friday night at Saddleback College, where they broke all the rules--and got away with it.

The medium itself was novel, the program even more so. Like many guitarists, the trio travels with the usual baggage of transcriptions, but they also include a few works written specifically for the ensemble.

Friday’s concert, for example, featured the world premiere of two movements from Dnu Huntrakul’s work in progress “Collections for Three Guitars.”

“Collections” consists of a series of movements, the order and choice depending on the preference of the performers. The unifying influence is the composer’s native Thai music.

It was Chiel Meijering’s “Miss Garcia Doesn’t Ring Anymore,” however, that proved the most successful. Meijering’s rock and roll roots emerged a dominant factor in this dynamic, thoroughly captivating, atonal work.

Few would dare to end such a concert with a new work by an unknown Dutch composer, yet the sensuous “Miss Garcia” left the audience wanting more.

The group’s transcriptions offered familiar music in creative settings. Rather than attempting to recreate the original through a note-for-note arrangement, these works utilized the full resources of the guitar.

Vivaldi’s “Winter” was the most convincing. Mozart’s Piano Sonata in D, KV 448, did not work as well; the composer was lost among the guitar strings.