Members of the Georgia Guitar Quartet, Odd Trio, Maps and Transit and the Musicsmiths will be performing “Daedalus, a work by Brian Smith” with special guest appearances by vocalists Stephanie Tingler and Joseph Hitchcock. The work follows the life of the Greek inventor Daedalus and is paired with aerial dance by members and students of Canopy Studio Repertory as well as belly dance and ancient dance by Tara Faragoza of the Shakti project.

"Daedalus was the Greek inventor of Athens who was banished to Crete when he attempted to murder his nephew in a jealous rage. While in Crete, he worked for king Minos where he created the wooden cow for Pasiphae, the labrynth to house the Minotaur, and the waxen wings for his son Icarus. Upon the death of his son, Daedalus moved to Sicily where he was taken in by king Cocalus and continually hunted down by king Minos until Minos was killed by King Cocalus’s daughters. After Minos’s death, Daedalus finally returned to Athens to finish out his last days at the home of his birth."

Saturday, March 19th, 7pm
Sunday, March 20th, 3pm
at Canopy Studio

$5 Suggested Donation

Featured Performers:

Kyle Dawkins, guitar/electronica

Marc Gilley, saxophone

Tara Faragoza, floor dance

Joseph Hitchcock, baritone

Alison Mueller, violin

Todd Mueller, percussion

Julie Phillips, aerials

Audrey Smith, aerials

Brian Smith, guitar/electronica

Natalie Smith, flute/aerials

Phil Snyder, cello

Stephanie Tingler, soprano

We have a few things we'd like to update everyone on as we wind up 2010. First, we're reposting some of our favorite live holiday performances as a Christmas mp3 gift from all of us: Jason Solomon's arrangement of "The Little Drummer Boy" (with quotes and references from Maurice Ravel's Bolero) followed by Brian Smith's inventive take on "Carol of the Bells." The performances were recorded at Hodgson Hall in Athens, Georgia. Enjoy!

click HERE to download

As a preview to our upcoming GGQ Publications feature which will allow you to download the sheet music to some of our pieces, we thought we would offer as a free download, the score and parts for Brian Smith's arrangement of Linus and Lucy by Vince Guaraldi from "A Charlie Brown Christmas"




Linus and Lucy (score)

L/L Guitar One

L/L Guitar Two

L/L Guitar Three

L/L Guitar Four



Also, here's a video from a recent performance in Brasstown, NC





Our Google Page is up now with updated videos, purchasing links for our music on Amazon, the Internets, etc.

Georgia Guitar Quartet & Robert Sims from Paul Hamilton on Vimeo.

from Paul Hamilton:
"As a pianist I have collaborated with Robert since 1997 - we are long time friends/colleagues. His talent is immeasurable. In 1999 he won the Gold Medal in the American Traditions Competition, in Savannah, Georgia. He also made his Carnegie Hall debut in 2005, and returned to Carnegie Hall in 2009 as a guest of Jessye Norman, as part of her HONOR! festival. I was fortunate to play the piano for him on his second appearance, and this was my Carnegie Hall debut. We're performing together in Gibraltar this month (Dec. 20)!

His new partnership with the GGQ is nothing less than extraordinary. Their arrangements are completely original: with Southern twang and classical arch! Their artistry is of the highest calibre.

Caleb Vinson and I filmed this with two Canon 7D's, in Dekalb, Illinois. The audio was recorded live."

We'll be adding a new feature to this site soon enabling you to purchase and download the sheet music to some of the pieces we've been performing in our concerts. Thanks to all of you who have been inquiring over the years as to where to purchase our arrangements and transcriptions. We're glad to finally be able to offer this service to you. We'll be adding pieces gradually once the page goes live. Stay tuned!

Stay tuned to THIS PAGE for more info/samples from our collaborations with baritone Robert Sims.

We recently released a new EP with our friend and amazing lyric baritone Robert Sims, who we began working with in early 2008. Collaborating with a vocalist is something we hadn’t really considered much until we heard Robert’s incredibly moving voice and his inventive take on early African American spirituals. We were eager to see what would result. Brian went to work on arrangements that could work for both the quartet and Robert, and together, they came up with a collection of songs that blew us away.

Among them is Leonard Bernstein’s “Simple Song,” a piece commisioned in honor of JFK, a Delta blues-style rendition of the traditional spiritual “Two Wings,” and a haunting and beautiful arrangement of Bob Dylan’s legendary “Blowin’ in the Wind.”

The GGQ/SIMS ensemble had our debut performance at Martha’s Vineyard in July, 2008 and it was clear the audience was as moved by the songs as we were. On the spot we were invited to return to play the series at Martha’s Vineyard the following year (though sadly that series came to an untimely end before that was realized). We have a number of shows scheduled with Robert in 2010 (we'll be posting these dates soon on our concert page). The EP will be available to purchase online soon so keep checking this page for further updates.

We recently held our second annual Quartet Retreat in the beautiful mountains of western North Carolina, where we learned a lot of new pieces for the upcoming concert season. We worked on Phil’s arrangements of Grieg and Prokofiev, Jason’s arrangements of two Villa-Lobos études, two new compositions by Brian, and Kyle’s arrangement of a Radiohead song. We also revisited some Renaissance dances by Praetorious and a work by Jason entitled Rung. We are excited to incorporate this music into our program.




Keep an eye out for the upcoming GGQ/Sims EP, which features 5 songs from our collaboration with lyric baritone Robert Sims. The songs, all of which were arranged by Brian, run the gamut from spirituals, to blues, to folk tunes. We hope to have the EP available soon!

Finally, we have instituted a new guitar workshop to occur every summer at Western Carolina University. “Guitar in the Mountains: First Annual Classical and Contemporary Guitar Workshop in Cullowhee with the Georgia Guitar Quartet” will take place July 7–10, 2010. More details to come.

Thanks for visiting our site!

Kyle Dawkins recently contributed a track for "Exsanguinette", the new album from Athens composer and multi-instrumentalist Killick. The band consists of Liz Allbee on trumpet, shell and electronics; Larry Ochs from Rova Saxaphone Quartet on tenor and sopranino saxophones, and Brann Dailor (from Atlanta metal band Mastodon) Kyle's track is an electronic piece called "Form Constant" and features Killick on H'arpeggionne, Delene Porter on vocals and Brann on drums.

The album was recorded by Tom Lewis at John Keane's studio in Athens, Georgia and recently mastered at Chase Park Transduction (also in Athens). The beautiful artwork which accompanies the album was designed by renowned tattoo artist and former Athenian Watson Atkinson. More info on the official release date and places to retrieve the album coming soon.





©Rinne Allen

The Quartet will be featured on a broadcast of The Atlanta Music Scene on Atlanta Public Radio WABE 90.1 FM. If you're in the Atlanta, Georgia area, tune in May 4, at 9:00pm. The featured performance will be from our recent concert in Hodgson Hall in Athens, Georgia. A special highlight will be a performance of Wheels, recently written for us by UGA theory and composition professor Leonard V. Ball and premiered at this performance.

The Atlanta Music Scene is a series of classical performances from venues all around Metro Atlanta. The series is made possible in part by a grant from the Georgia Council for the Arts, a member agency of the National Endowment for the Arts.

Just a reminder to those in the Athens, Georgia area - be sure to check out a performance from Our New Silence this Saturday at Ramsey Hall on the campus of UGA at 8:30pm.

Musicians Involved - Kai Riedl, Suny Lyons, Heather Mcintosh, Kyle Dawkins, Killick, Page Campbell, Josh Mckay, Jay Nackashi, Roger Stahl, Tim Hankins and more.

"Our New Silence is a collective of various musicians from Athens Georgia that are remixing/reinterpreting/abstracting music from Java Indonesia that has been documented by the Javasounds recording project produced by UGA Religion Asian studies professor Kai Riedl. This is a rare chance to hear some of Athens’s most creative musicians, learn about an unfamiliar part of the Islamic world, and enter the soundscape of another country in a particularly Athens, Georgia fashion." Hear on Myspace.

Athens Banner Herald
Red and Black
Flagpole Magazine

The Quartet was recently featured on WITF Pennsylvania Public Radio's Classical Air radio broadcast.

CLICK HERE to listen to the podcast.

Phil's arrangement of Chopin's "Etude op. 10 no. 3" has been published by Productions d'Oz and is available for purchase through their website.

Click over to the media page to listen to our performance of this piece on our album "Mosaic" or check out the live performance from our 2007 concert at LaGrange College below.