Bates welcomes Brazilian Guitar Quartet, famed for distinctive approach to repertoire

Winners of a 2011 Latin Grammy Award, the Brazilian Guitar Quartet performs at Bates at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 1, at the Olin Arts Center Concert Hall, 75 Russell St.

Admission is $12, available at batestickets.com. A limited number of free tickets are available for students and seniors 65 and older; please visit bit.ly/oacbates. For more information, please contact 207-786-6163 or olinarts@bates.edu.

Featuring music by Manuel de Falla, Heitor Villa-Lobos and Joaquin Rodrigo, this concert begins the Olin Arts Alive Quartet Series. Later entries in the series are the Cuarteto Quiroga (March 16), the Calidore Quartet (April 25) and the Momenta Quartet (May 9).

Winner of the Latin Grammy in the best classical album category for Brazilian Guitar Quartet Plays Villa-Lobos (Delos), the Brazilian Guitar Quartet has established itself as one of world’s leading guitar ensembles. Praised by The Washington Post for its “seductive beauty” and “virtuosic gusto,” the group’s unique combination of regular six-string and extended-range eight-string guitars allows for the exploration of an original and unusual repertoire.

The members of the quartet are Everton Gloeden, Tadeu do Amaral, Luiz Mantovani and Gustavo Costa. In their more than 10 years of activity, the BGQ has performed in the Americas, Europe and Asia, often receiving ecstatic audience responses, garnering rave critical reviews and sold-out halls.

In 2004, the quartet was a headliner at the inaugural World Guitar Congress in Baltimore where, with the Baltimore Symphony, it gave the world premiere of a specially commissioned concerto by Brazil’s 2001 Composer of the Year, Ronaldo Miranda.

In 2009, the quartet performed the “Suite Iberia” by Isaac Albéniz in a Brazilian tour that included the major capitals of that country, sponsored by Instituto Cervantes in honor of the 100th anniversary of the composer’s death.

The BGQ’s discography includes five CDs for Delos. Three of them are devoted to Brazilian music: In addition to the Villa-Lobos disc, they are Essência do Brasil (1999) and Encantamento (2001). The other two recordings present, in their entirety, two great works of Western classical music, Bach’s “Four Orchestral Suites” (2000) and Albéniz’s “Suite Iberia” (2006).