'Most beloved' guitar concerto featured with Auburn Symphony

Guitarist David Chapman will play the well-known Concerto de Aranjuez at Auburn Symphony concerts March 7 and 8. The work, by 20th-century Spanish composer Joaquín Rodrigo, is "one of the most beloved guitar concertos of all time," said Auburn Symphony Maestro Peter Jaffe. "It's an absolutely gorgeous work with great Spanish flavor." Dr. Chapman, who leads the Cal State Stanislaus Guitar Department, has been a featured soloist with orchestras around the world, playing on the classical flamenco guitar and lute. His favorite composition to play is Rodrigo's concerto. His understanding of the work has grown through his many years of performing it, he said. "Rodrigo wrote the concerto's second movement, the adagio, first. It was composed as a response to his wife's miscarriage of their first child," Chapman explained. "The movement is a conversation with God, the struggle to let go of his son, allowing God to take his son's soul. You almost hear the man crying. It's one of the most emotional movements we have in the repertoire. "The first movement brings him back to the castle in Spain where he was married. The last movement is a potpourri of different styles showing what a great composer he really was – a conversation with instruments, different meters, dances, high winds soaring over all – I love playing this concerto." Chapman, an Ecuadorian by birth, played the concerto for the first time, "feeling very scared," when he graduated at age 18 from a conservatory in South America. He played it again as a student at Sacramento State, invited to perform by then-music director Leo Eylar "a wonderful experience." Chapman's career has taken him to stages in Argentina, Mexico, Spain, England, Italy, Germany, Thailand, China, Japan, Russia, and throughout the U.S. "Through the years, I have learned to breathe with the piece, a work of art. You grow into the part, hear the orchestral part, learn the wonderful machinery and how you fit in, appreciate subtleties," he said. "At first, I didn't know what inspired the concerto's second movement; to learn about that added a tremendous amount to my understanding of the piece." Also on the concert program are Beethoven's Leonore Overture No. 3, "one of the great masterworks in the repertoire," said Maestro Jaffe, and Schumann's Symphony No 4, "one of the most dynamic works, romantic to the hilt and really engaging." Chapman summed up his feeling about the coming concerts like this: "You work so hard, have a clear idea of what you want to convey with the music – with Peter, the orchestra – to put together something exquisite, hoping the audiences get something out of it. We are servants of music."