Kapsalis/Ivanovic: A Unique Guitar Duo

Peter Douskalis

Conquering the world one day at a time – the Andreas Kapsalis and Goran Ivanovic Guitar Duo are on a rigorous touring schedule and may be stopping nearby you.

For those of you that listened to the show, a while back we had the pleasure of listening to and interviewing the duo live on JazzCity on RadioNEO. Since that short time ago the groups’ reputation has increasingly grown and they continue to tour worldwide.

Guitar Duo

This is an acoustic guitar duo that at first glance you may ask yourself, what’s new here? One guy plays steel-string guitar, the other plays nylon-string, I think I’ve seen this group before? Was it Al DiMeola and Paco de Lucia or was it Rodrigo y Gabriela?  Well the answer is neither as this group is completely unique.

Kapsalis is a Greek 10 finger tapping guitar prodigy of the steel-string acoustic guitar and Ivanovic a Croatian-Serbian virtuoso of touch and tone on the nylon-string guitar. Their compositions and performances pull your mind in their world and stimulate the fantasy. Both of their heritages can be heard naturally and effortlessly in their compositions and improvisations and together they make a beautiful addition to the world of guitar duos.

Two songs we had the pleasure of rotating on the JazzCity show and come highly recommended by me are “Shadow Thief” and “Vertigo” from their self-titled 2009 release. “Veritgo” is one of my particular favorites as it features a very primitive and dissonant rhythm and harmony reminiscent of the compositional style of the great Igor Stravinsky. Listening to this avant-garde composition brings images to mind of the Vaslav Nijinsky choreography to the Stravinsky ballet The Rite of Spring as if the two guitars are the whole orchestra themselves.  For those that know of this work know that the world ballet has a completely different meaning from what a traditionalist may think.

Goran Ivanovic and Andreas Kapsalis

They are currently coming off a stint of shows in Europe and will shortly be back in the US. May 11th and 16th you can catch them in Michigan or on May 17th and 18th you can find them in Illinois. The 19th of May they will be Indiana and the 24th of May in Kentucky and then again the 8th and 25th of June in Wisconsin.  See their website www.akgiduo.com for all of the details.

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