Musician Josh Searles — a transplant to Roberts Creek from origins in Ontario’s Georgian Bay — is on a mission: to string together a classical guitar community on the Sunshine Coast.
The electronic music producer, recording artist and touring performer will return to Eric Cardinal Hall in Gibsons on Feb. 22 for a full-length solo concert. (A pair of shows at the same venue last year sold out rapidly.)
“It’s such an intimate instrument that to have it presented in an intimate setting seems to make sense,” said Searles. He completed a master’s degree in classical guitar performance from Spain’s University of Alicante, interrupted in 2020 by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Searles has spent more than two decades composing, scoring films and recording and DJ’ing electronic music. He is in the midst of producing an avant-garde album that marries the traditional timbre of classical guitar to lush electronica, mixed in 7.4-channel Dolby spatial sound.
When it comes to his dedication to classical guitar, he acknowledges outright that it is a niche instrument. “Either you’re really, really in or it doesn’t really matter to you,” he observed. “Here on the Sunshine Coast, there’s a small community of classical guitarists starting.” The Coast is home to acclaimed Brazilian guitarist-percussionist Celso Machado (with whom Searles has previously collaborated) and professional luthier Martin Blackwell, widely recognized as one of Canada’s top instrument builders.
“We’re slowly drawing people out of the woodwork and bringing some eyes to what the guitar does,” he added. “I don’t think people really know how cool classical guitar has gotten over the last 20 years — there are a lot more composers writing music for guitar now, and there are a lot more guitars themselves.”
Searles teaches a small cadre of students and is considering running a series of workshops. Meanwhile, he acknowledges that the greatest driver of increased interest will be performances by local or visiting artists. When one of his teenaged pupils who had strummed electric and acoustic guitars for years was exposed to classical repertoire, a transformation took place. “It’s been amazing to watch,” Searles said. “He sent me a classical guitar video at something like 5 a.m. the other day... and this is a 16-year-old kid, right?”
Searles’s own musical heritage is grounded in classical traditions: he studied French horn and piano as a youth and was a ballet dancer for a dozen years (ultimately attending Canada’s National Ballet School in Toronto). Despite the unamplified austerity of his planned performance in Gibsons, there will be a touch of visual showmanship: illumination will be via an array of electrically-lit candelabras collected by his partner, leather and textile artist Ocean Wilson.
The first half of the Feb. 22 program includes a survey of classical guitar works from warm climates, featuring composers from the U.S. (Californian Andrew York), South America, Spain and tango godfather Astor Piazzolla of Argentina. (“We need warm sound and warm vibes in a cold February,” Searles said.)
The second half concentrates on Spanish repertoire, featuring one of Searles’s favourite guitarists of the 19th- and 20th-century era: Regino Sáinz de la Maza. For a time, Sáinz de la Maza lived in the same Madrid house as his brother Eduardo — himself also a renowned guitar composer — and the surrealist painter Salvador Dali. “You can just imagine the melting pot in that house,” laughed Searles. “You’ve got Dali painting his melting clocks and at the same time in another bedroom you have this composer writing incredible music. It gives me shivers to think about.”
The concert of solo pieces takes place at Eric Cardinal Hall on Feb. 22 at 7:30 p.m. Tickets ($25) are available at Hand Reef and Sew and One Leaf Gallery in Gibsons, and MELOmania in Roberts Creek.
