LAURA METCALF

CELLO

BIOGRAPHY

RUPERT BOYD

GUITAR

BIOGRAPHY

 
 
 SONGS OF LOVE & DESPAIR 
 at 
Castello di Borghese Vineyard
17150 Rte. 48 Cutchogue, NY 11935 
Sunday, September 25th, 2022, at 5:00pm
 
Boyd Meets Girl
Rupert Boyd, classical guitarist 
Laura Metcalf, cellist

Music Program

Reflexões No. 6 - Jaime Zenamon (b. 1953)
III. Vivissimo
Gretchen am Spinnrade - Franz Schubert (1797-1828)
The Deserted Garden - Florence Price (1887-1953) *
Arabesque No. 1 - Claude Debussy (1862-1918) *
Filles de l’Élysée - Paul Brantley (b. 1961)
Mountain Songs - Robert Beaser (b. 1954)
Barbara Allen
The House Carpenter
Quartet for the End of Time - Olivier Messiaen (1908-1992)
Praise for the Eternity of Jesus
A New York Minute - Marián Budos (b. 1968)
* (Arr. Boyd Meets Girl)

Encores:
Pray You Catch Me - Beyoncé (b. 1981) *
Eleanor Rigby - Lennon/McCartney (arr. S. Metcalf)
Blackbird - Lennon/McCartney * 

          
"Beguiling… fascinating… enchanting… their mutual understanding is manifest in every bar, not least the way they listen to each other.”  - Gramophone
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"Girl perform seamlessly in this new release, their communication as artists seemingly flowing from a single consciousness… a very beautiful, very remarkable set of performances… Highly Recommended.” - Positive Feedback

Ticket price:
General audience: $ 60 (includes 1 glass of wine) 
Members of Rites of Spring and Members of Borghese Vineyard: $ 40 
(Includes 1 glass of wine) 
Children Under 16 FREE

BUY TICKETS

This concert was made possible in part with public funding provided by Suffolk County.

In collaboration with Castello di Borghese Vineyard

Description
The intimate character of Boyd Meets Girl’s new album is apparent right from the outset of the first track, their beguiling arrangement of Debussy’s Arabesque No 1. A husband-and-wife cello-and-guitar duo, their mutual understanding is manifest in every bar, not least the way they listen to each other. The intimacy comes from the album’s premise, being ‘conceived, arranged, rehearsed and recorded during the Covid 19 pandemic’, and one can easily imagine them playing these pieces for their own mutual enjoyment in their living room.
Most of the arrangements are theirs, with Debussy, and Florence Price’s sombre The Deserted Garden, rubbing shoulders with some surprising non-classical neighbours: Beyoncé, McCartney’s ‘Blackbird’ and Radiohead. These all work rather well (indeed, ‘Blackbird’ is enchanting), often conjuring quite different characters from the originals. By contrast, those by other hands – Napoléon Coste’s wonderfully evocative version of Schubert’s ‘Gretchen am Spinnrade’ and Valter Dešpalj’s of Boccherini’s delightful A major Cello Sonata – are unobtrusive, staying close to the source works. In between lies Robert Beaser’s Mountain Songs, four arrangements-cum-fantasias (listen to the driving guitar part in the second, ‘The House Carpenter’) on American folk songs – here comes the despair of the album’s title – or ‘Louange à l’éternité de Jésus’ from Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time, which concludes the programme in an emotional state quite other from the one it started with.
The two wholly original pieces are even more fascinating, bringing forwards composers to a wider public most likely unaware of either or the geography linking them. Paul Brantley’s Filles de l’Élysée is a delightful duet written as a birthday present, based at a few removes on the ‘Ode to Joy’ and celebrating a walk down the iconic Paris boulevard with two sisters: ‘Tochter aus Elysium’ indeed. Rupert Boyd met Brantley in the Big Apple, which city inspired Marián Budoš’s A New York Minute, which rather curiously brought Villa-Lobos to my mind. Nice sound, if very close-miked.
from GRAMOPHONE


Boyd Meets Girl 
Boyd Meets Girl pairs Australian classical guitarist Rupert Boyd with American cellist Laura Metcalf. The duo performs an eclectic and engaging range of repertoire, from Bach to Beyoncé. Both acclaimed soloists in their own right, Boyd has been described as “truly evocative” by The Washington Post, and as “a player who deserves to be heard” by Classical Guitar Magazine.  Metcalf, also a member of the ensembles Sybarite5 and Break of Reality, has been called “brilliant” by Gramophone. Boyd Meets Girl has toured throughout the USA, India, Nepal, New Zealand, and every state and territory in Australia. 
Boyd Meets Girl’s debut album, self-titled and released on the Grammy award-winning label Sono Luminous, reached #3 on the Billboard Traditional Classical chart. According to Gramophone, “They play like one, with a harmony of purpose as sure as their intonation.” The album has received over a million streams on Spotify, and has been broadcast on radio stations around the world, including New York’s WQXR and SiriusXM, and was selected as Album of the Week on California’s KDFC and Australia’s ABC Classic. Their second album, Songs Love and Despair, was released in March 2022 to more critical acclaim.  
Artistic directors of the acclaimed Sunday morning concert series GatherNYC, and a happily married couple as well, the duo live in New York City with their son, Milo. 
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