Matt's blog

The last three concerts of the tour are in Asheville, Raleigh, and Greensboro. Asheville is a very cool town and the crowd is really enthusiastic and into the music. Raleigh is bittersweet in that it's our last concert with Luciana. She is a fantastic talent and is a sweet and deep person - so down to earth and warm. We will miss working with her. Greensboro is a fun concert. Legendary classical guitar pedagogue Aaron Shearer is in the audience. It's an honor to meet him - I first learned classical guitar out of his method book.

Heavy snow in April! Amazing. Beautiful but kind of scary in that we have a morning flight to North Carolina, and if we miss that flight, it's curtains for the concert. It works out well though. The storm has passed and we cruise on down to NC.

These four days are dedicated to recording the next LAGQ album, tentatively entitled "LAGQ-Brazil". The studio is Skywalker Sound, a state of the art post-production facility, owned by Star Wars director George Lucas.

The grounds of Skywalker are gorgeous - I love Northern California! Rolling green hills, quiet country roads, and cushy digs...a sort-of deluxe camping experience.

This concert with Luciana goes particularly well. Everybody is digging in and groovin'. But apparently Bill dug in a little too much, because he informs us at intermission that he has popped off his repaired "m" nail. So he's having to use "i" and "a" fingers for scales instead of "i" and "m". Amazing he can pull it off! And he sounds marvelous, as usual. On stage, I didn't even realize what had happened.

I lived in S.B. from 1996 to 2000, and it is one of my favorite cities. It's small town charm, perfect climate, and arms-length distance from LA makes me wonder sometimes why I left. While living in S.B., I taught at four Central California colleges and universities, and was constantly performing as a classical and jazz guitarist. I couldn't be more proud to return and perform there with the Quartet. During our four day stay, we play a recital concert, a family concert, as well as two concerts with the Santa Barbara Philharmonic.

This is at the Southwest Guitar Festival. In attendance are Mary Ackerman, Matt Dunne, Bruce Holzman, etc. (no pressure!). The crowd is fantastic - over 1000 people and very attentive (and supportive, I might add). It was a very meaningful experience to play and to see these people, some of whom were a significant influence on me when I was learning to play.