Acclaimed guitarist Peter Sprague’s new 5-track album, Width of the World, is just out now, but longtime fans may have gotten a glimpse of the music several decades ago.
“Back in 2002 I got a commission from the San Diego Symphony to compose a guitar concerto and perform it with the orchestra,” Sprague recalled. “I devoted a couple of months to write the piece and on May 25, 2002 we played the world premier concert at Symphony Hall in San Diego. It was me along with Fred Benedetti playing second guitar, Kevin Hennessy on bass, Duncan Moore on drums, and something like forty other orchestral musicians diving into the notes that I wrote. It was a thrill and an honor, and to be up on the edge of the stage listening and interacting with the orchestra was a moment for the books. What a sound, what a vibe!”
Despite that, the performance wasn’t everything that Sprague had hoped it would be. “The main issue is that we didn’t have enough rehearsal time to pull together the music,” he said. “I can understand the predicament, not enough money to pay all of the musicians and if my composition had been a little less involved that would have helped the situation. Also, and this was new to me, when you compose for an orchestra you need to carefully consider the “balances” of timber and volume between the instruments. For example, if you have the flutes carrying the melody, because they aren’t that loud, you need to tame down the rest of the orchestra so that they can be heard. For my composing demo, when I faced a situation like this I simply turned the flute volume up. This doesn’t work in a real orchestra, there are no volume knobs to turn up when you need something louder.”
The concert got bootleg recorded “but I’m talking about bargain basement quality and not really listenable,” Sprague noted.
“So here we are 23 years later and I’m thinking it’d be a cool thing to have an audio realization of the piece that I’d spent so much time on. Let’s see, if I hire an orchestra to play and record the composition I might just as well go to Barstow and buy a decent house. Or I can do it myself with a little help from my studio machinery and some great real musos covering key sections of the orchestra. So for the last couple of months I’ve been living in the detailed world of orchestral sample libraries mixed in with real drums, bass, bassoon, trumpet, violins, viola, cello, and of course my real guitar playing.”
Width of the World has an all-star lineup including Sprague, Mack Leighton (bass), Duncan Moore (drums), Bridget Dolkas (violin), Pam Jacobson (viola), Rudy Stein (cello), Ryan Simmons (bassoon), Steve Dillard (trumpet), and on “The Poet,” Kay Ethridge (piano).
For his part Sprague is happy to have this project out to the public after more than two decades since it’s debut. “It’s been a thrill to learn and experiment with the technology and even better, emerging with an album that is bringing to fruition my 23 years ago musical vision,” he said. “It’s here and I’m happy!”
