The dualities of Strunz & Farah

Listening to Strunz & Farah at the Conga Room Wednesday, one kept wondering what would happen if either of the two virtuosic guitarists ever slammed a refrigerator door on a finger. Because speed and dexterity are what the veteran duo is all about.

Costa Rica-born Jorge Strunz and Iranian Ardeshir Farah have worked as a team since 1980. Initially catching the surging wave of new-age music, they added world music and nouveau flamenco styles to their repertoire along the way, producing an especially successful series of recordings, including the Grammy-nominated “Americas” in the early ‘90s.

The Conga Room set touched on most of their primary areas of interest, from floating pop flamenco to a brief sampling of Brazilian samba. Seated front and center, Strunz & Farah were the constant focus of attention, with Strunz, in particular, offering most of the blindingly fast-fingered soloing. Farah, who was equally dexterous at times, was also responsible for many of the evening’s relatively few lyrical passages.

A few more such segments would have given the program a far better balance, both musically and emotionally. As it was, the tendency to play tune after tune using the same descending, flamenco-related harmonies, the same knuckle-busting displays of technique, the same repetitious rhythms, soon became wearingly predictable. The most intriguing part of the set, in fact, didn’t take place until the final number, when the spotlight shifted, too briefly, to the stellar percussion work of Jimmy Brantley and Casio Duarte.