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Advancing the electric guitar chamber music tradition
The Los Angeles Electric 8 is an electric guitar chamber octet in which eight classically-trained guitarists direct their training and musical curiosity towards the electric guitar, an instrument usually reserved for rock. They reclaim classical music for the electric guitar, revealing the instrument’s enormous potential in the world of art music.
The 8's founding principle is to showcase the variety of rich sounds made by electric guitars and vacuum-tube amplifiers. They draw from and adapt a variety of art music including organ works, string arrangements, wind ensembles and Indonesian gamelan pieces. The effect is an exploration of a greater potential of the electric guitar with both intentional and accidental nods to the rock characteristics of the instrument--Mendelssohn meets Mogwai. The 8's sound is a lush interweaving of clean and occasionally overdriven guitar figures that often conjure harpsichords, bells, massive pianos and choral textures. Their repertoire spans the late Renaissance to today, including new works written specifically for the ensemble.
Innovative repertoire
The 8 seeks out repertoire that is related to the electric guitar in a variety of ways, for instance hearing electric guitar timbres in church organs or struck metal or hearing driving ostinatos in Shostakovich or Stravinsky that overlap with electric guitar rock riffs. Beyond re-imagining the traditional, the 8 is devoted to playing new music. They have premiered new works and continue to seek out works by living composers such as Peter Yates, Frank J. Oteri, Nathaniel Braddock, Cornelius Boots, Wayne Siegel, and Randall Kohl. Their debut CD illustrates how they balance adapting the old and advancing the new.
Commitment to outreach
Los Angeles Electric 8 members believe in making connections with their audiences. As individuals, most of the members have significant experience teaching classical guitar. As an octet, they have done lecture/demonstrations at UCLA, Cal Poly Pomona, and the California Men's Colony, a California state prison.
Birth of the 8
The seed for the Los Angeles Electric 8 was a 2004 performance of classical music on electric guitars organized by the Los Angeles Modern Guitar Project, featuring students of guitarist Peter Yates. The second half of the recital brought eight of the performers together for a West Coast premiere of three new works by Chicago composer/guitarist Nathaniel Braddock. In 2006, four of these guitarists, Ben Harbert, Philip Graulty, Chelsea Green and Felix Salazar performed in the late James Tenney's microtonal electric guitar sextet, Water on the Mountain... Fire in Heaven... for the James Tenney Festival. Recognizing the potential of the electric guitar in chamber music, they dusted off the Braddock pieces, began recruiting other guitarists and sought out material that would fit the group.
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Our first studio album is now available!
Click here for Samples.
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