Jason Deroche at Friday at the Ford

We don't have to look far and wide to find talented performers for our Friday at the Ford concert series. For our latest concert we welcomed Jason Deroche, a classical guitarist from La Grange who not only enjoys playing standard guitar pieces but also likes to tackle works not intended for six strings. For example, he started his performance with selections from Vivaldi's L'estro Armonico, which were originally written for violins and cello. Jason took transcriptions of these written for keyboards by J. S. Bach and rendered them beautifully on guitar. Next, he played his own versions of a couple of Johannes Brahms's Intermezzos usually performed on piano. I had already been quite impressed when he then revealed his lively guitar covers of Wedding Day at Troldhaugen and March of the Trolls by Edvard Grieg.

For the second half of his concert, Jason turned from Europe to South America, highlighting the works of Agustin Barrios, each evoking a new mood. I especially like Muzurka Passionata. Showing that he also enjoys popular music, he closed with his take of the Beatles In My Life. For an encore, he played a familiar Spanish guitar classic Leyenda by Isaac Albeniz, which everyone in the audience seemed to recognize.

54 people attended the concert, and Jason sold all of the copies of a CD that he recorded with the harpist Mark Brewer called Bach to Brazil. I got the last one and have been listening as I commute. He hopes to record another CD featuring his growing collection of transcriptions for guitar. I want one when he does.

You can learn more about Jason, his music, his teaching, and his projects at his website.