Xuefei Yang (guitar) – 11th November 2022

World renowned guitarist, Xuefei Yang’s programme was entitled ‘Classical and Beyond’. The programme included traditional pieces by Bach and Fernando Sor, and featured arrangements by Xuefei Yang of traditional Chinese music, as well as more modern Latin, Brazilian, French and Spanish guitar music.

Audience comments about the concert:

• A fantastic mix of classical guitar. Such a pleasure to witness and be part of something so special.
• How wonderful to hear such a world-renowned musician as Xuefei Yang. All credit to the society members who also made us so welcome. A glorious evening, thank you!
• World class entertainment in Scunthorpe – such a treat. Thank you to everyone who makes this possible.
• Fantastic performer! Super engaging.
• I particularly enjoyed the 2^nd piece (A Moonlit Night in the Spring River) where you could see the pictures she was painting.
• A wonderful shock to the system. Come again!
• Breath-taking! Excellent playing and a very enjoyable programme
• Absolutely wonderful. Thank you for putting this on.
• Superb concert. Her guitar playing was beautiful and amazing – thoroughly enjoyed it.
• Stunning and poignant
• Magnificent!
• Fantastic to see a live guitar recital
• Brilliant versatility.
• Great to meet a guitar heronine of mine. Beautifully interpreted music.
• (translated from Ukranian) In my opinion, this concert is time well spent with good music.

Review by Clive Davies

CLASSICAL and Beyond was the subtitle of the programme presented by the Chinese guitarist Xuefei Yang. Beyond turned out to be a melodious realm that shifted in time and space, traversing both continents and centuries.

A conspicuously large audience was drawn to the Outwood Academy, Foxhills, for the latest offering from the Scunthorpe and North Lincolnshire Concert Society. This was surely to be expected, since Xuefei Yang is generally held to be one of the foremost instrumentalists of her  age.
She began this long-awaited recital with her own fully-persuasive transcription of the familiar Bach Cello Suite No 3, revealing sounds which seem inherently cello-like yet which proved to be quite as authentic when expertly voiced on the guitar.

From a baroque classic the trail soared away to China, and a work exemplifying the classical tradition of the Ming Dynasty. A Moonlit Night on the Spring River is a portrait in sound of moonlight falling on a watery scene, replete with village, shadows, breezes, songs and the soothing tread of the river. The effect was wholly impressionistic, seeming to pick out the effects of reflections on water, of light and shadow and the distant voices of the villagers.

There followed later in the programme the performer’s arrangement of another Chinese classic, an intense and virtuosic Sword Dance dating from the gilded era of the Tang dynasty.

Impressions from closer to home came with an arrangement by Julian Bream of Debussy’s Girl with the Flaxen Hair. There followed in sequence, as it were, Manuel de Falla’s Homage to Claude Debussy and Rodrigo’s Invocacion y Danza, which was in turn the composer’s tribute to de Falla, his older friend and supporter.

Xuefei was generous with her introductions to the work, indicating not just the context of the pieces (such as the relationship between the Spanish composers) but also explaining her special affinity with particular items in the programme. She was the perfect pilot and guide for the journey.

Her travels swooped across an ocean and touched down next on Brazil, for two pieces from the Franco-Brazilian film Black Orpheus. The prize-winning film. was a sensation on its appearance more than half a century ago. It introduced the European audiences to the alluring beat of the Samba  and the beguiling charms of the Bossa Nova.

Xuefei concluded her recital with brilliant pieces from Andalucia, vivid with the earth-jarring stomp of Flamenco and the passionate keening of the guitar.
As the last notes of the music hung in the air, the audience emitted a sound that comprised equal parts of a yelp of joy, a groan of gratification and a whoop of pure pleasure. The sound continued to reverberate as Xuefei Yang departed in a radiance of applause and admiration.

Xuefei’s programme: