The Spring 2021 semester kicks off with a Faculty Artist Series concert by guitar faculty Dr. Daniel Bolshoy. The program consists of all original music for guitar and has been pre-recorded by Bolshoy in tonight's 7 pm video premiere. The centerpiece is the “Sonata Romantica” by Manuel Maria Ponce, who wrote it in the style of Schubert. The great Spanish guitarist Andres Segovia would regularly commission Ponce to compose new piece in the style of old composers, and he would often perform the music attributing the pieces to the "wrong" composer. Also on the program, “Un Sueno en la Floresta” by Agustin Barrios, which is associated with a poem he wrote describing how he came to play the guitar. The Rodrigo "Sonata Giocosa" is a joking, or jovial sonata, poking fun at the dissonances of 20th century music, and employing many Spanish sound effects, especially in the final movement. The final two pieces come from Assad's "suite aquarelle" which was his first piece for solo guitar, having mostly composed and arranged for his guitar duo up to that point. The concert was filmed with the help of the Bellingham Symphony Orchestra, which was filmed on Dec. 1, 2020, in Montreal, Canada, by Olivier Magnan and sound engineer Bernard Slobodian.