A Guitar Quartet Performance With a Staging Twist, From Seville

The Omni Foundation for the Performing Arts has released a new on-location video, and this one has a visual hook to go with the music. The Cuarteto de Guitarras de Andalucía (Andalusian Guitar Quartet), made up of Francisco Bernier, Marco Socías, Antonio Duro, and Javier Riba, performs three movements from Manuel de Falla's "Cuatro piezas españolas" in Riba's own arrangement for four guitars.

What catches the eye first, though, is the staging. Rather than the usual semicircle, the quartet sits in a single line, one guitarist behind the next,. It's a simple change of the sitting arrangement, but it gives the whole video a distinct visual effect.

The performance was filmed inside the Palacio de los Marqueses de la Algaba in Seville, a fifteenth century Mudéjar palace built for the Guzmán family and now home to the city's Centro de Arte Mudéjar. Its brickwork and tiled portico make it one of the finest examples of civil Mudéjar architecture in Seville, and a fitting backdrop for Falla's Andalusian-rooted music.

GSI is a proud sponsor of the Omni Foundation.