Nanaimo Chamber Orchestra starts season with classical guitar’s ‘Sweet Strings’

Guitar may not be everyone’s first thought when it comes to classical compositions, but when listening to the music of Ferdinando Carulli, guitar becomes a gateway to the late 18th century. The Nanaimo Chamber Orchestra is starting its 2025-26 season on Saturday, Nov. 15, featuring guest classical guitar soloist Alan Rinehart playing Carulli’s baroque Guitar Concerto in E Minor, Opus 140. “It’s not a big piece, in terms of sound, but it follows a very typical classical form,” Rinehart told the News Bulletin. “You think of Mozart or Haydn if they had written a guitar concerto, it would be similar sounding to that.” Rinehart began playing classical guitar 50 years ago, and since then co-founded the Vancouver Guitar Quartet, released 10 solo CDs, and taught in the music departments at Vancouver Community College and the University of British Columbia. The musician said when he picked up the guitar in the early 1970s he was drawn into rock and folk, but that didn’t last long. “When I heard a classical guitarist and heard recordings it really caught my interest and I was hooked,” he said. “It became a real, total vocation for me and I have been doing it ever since.” Rinehart said anyone who studies classical guitar will come across Carulli as a fundamental musician in the genre. “He wrote a tremendous amount of music for early playing, and he wrote a lot of music for solo guitar but he really shines when he writes chamber music. It’s a real little gem in three short movements, about 16 minutes long. It has some moments of real beauty and moments of real drama.” The end result is what Rinehart considers a ‘conversation’ between the guitarist and the orchestra throughout the piece. “The orchestra makes a statement, the guitar answers the statement … then there’s some combined playing.” Other music attendees can expect in the upcoming show includes Vivaldi’s Concerto Alla Rustica, Tomaso Albinoni’s Sinfonia a Cinq, Opus 2 and Dag Wirén’s Serenade for Strings. “It’s an appealing program, it’s not going to be too intellectual or too unpleasantly modern,” the guitarist said. Titled Sweet Strings, the show takes place on Saturday, Nov. 15 at 2:30 p.m. at St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church, and Sunday, Nov. 16, at 2:30 p.m. at St. Mary’s Church in Ladysmith. Admission is $25 for adults, $5 for students and free for those under 13. Tickets can be purchased at the door or online at www.nanaimochamberorchestra.com [http://www.nanaimochamberorchestra.com].