The husband and wife duo Newman and Oltman presented the second in the series of concerts at this year?s Bermuda Classic Guitar Festival. In the intimacy of St. Andrew?s Church, the performers regaled their audience with a string of anecdotes on topics as varied as the price of Michael?s Brazilian shoes, the origin of Laura?s gorgeous green outfit (Nigeria) and the vagaries of how composers name their compositions.

They spoke with ease and familiarity to the audience throughout, setting a warm tone for the evening?s musical offerings. And what interesting musical offerings they were.They opened with a piece by the legendary Argentinean composer and Bandon eon virtuoso, Astor Piazzolla, ?Lo Que Vendra?.

The charmingly entitled ?No Feathers on This Frog? followed. This piece, receiving its Bermuda premiere performance, is constructed as a sinuous flow of arpeggiated figures that move through Eastern modes, and evoke an Eastern European atmosphere. Indeed the composer Dusan Bogdanovich hails originally from the former Yugoslavia.

?Three Hungarian Tributes? followed. These strange and lovely pieces did homage to Bartok, Liszt and Ligeti. In particular the Liszt inspired piece, while sensibly not attempting to echo the sounds of the great composer went instead for an evocation of his sense of the weird. This was achieved by lengthy a rhythmic passages, void of recognisable harmonic structure, the notes sounded-overtones ? having a curious randomness about them. The Bartok inspired piece explored modes for which the composer was fond of employing in his music.

Then we were given ?Three Songs for Twelve Strings?, by Rami Vamos and Randall Avers, American expatriate composers living in Paris. This also was a Bermuda premiere performance. The three songs were entitled, ?A Light Dry Table Wine?, ?Berries and Cream?, and ?Cricket?, a piece in which a ?whining? motif keeps reappearing, to humorous effect.

The set after the interval began with ?Four Brazilian Pieces?, titled ?Sambalanco?, ?Boloviana?, ?Bolinhas de Queijo?, and ?Xaranga de Vovo?, respectively. The first was a laid back samba like piece, reminiscent of the playing Jim Hall brought out of Brazil along with Stan Getz with the Bossa Nova wave, some 40 years or so ago, except, perhaps this was more authentic. In any event, it is refreshing to see that these composers brook no distinctions between genre as to what is concert material and what is not. The same could be said for the lovely Andean dance, ?Boloviana? that evoked the sounds of the Andean villager?s music. ?Bolinhas de Quiejo? ( cheese balls!) had a touch of Debussy, and Xaranga do Vovo (Grandpa?s Jalopy) no doubt purposefully sounded like a refined Blue Grass film track.

Finally, transcriptions from the piano works of the Spanish composer Isaac Albania closed out the evening?s offerings. The onomatopoeic ?Rumores de la Caleta?, the evocative ?Asturie, Prelude to Cantos de Espana?, and ?Sevilla?.

The duet playing in this, as indeed in everything played was quite simple sublime. This duo has the practised ease garnered from more than 30 years of performance together, and an unfeigned nonchalance that allows attention to focus on the music they make. Their ease with and knowledge of each other is palpable. They answered a question no doubt on several people?s minds: Are they married. They are. They make beautiful music together.

Matthew Joseph and Friends.