Orchestra, guitarist to transport Walk Hall audiences – JH News&Guide

One of the wonders of music is how it can bypass the brain and go straight to the heart, evoking deep and complex emotions or memories and transporting us to another time and place.

This weekend, the Grand Teton Music Festival will take audiences to a city in the center of Spain, the streets of Rome, and the Greek isle of Naxos.

French conductor Stéphane Denève returns to Jackson Hole for his fourth time to lead the festival orchestra in Ottorino Respighi’s “The Fountains of Rome” (1916), Albert Roussel’s “Bacchus and Ariadne” (1931) and Joaquín Rodrigo’s “Concierto de Aranjuez,” on which visiting South Korean guitarist Jiyeon Kim will solo.

A short work for strings by Grammy-winning American composer Jessie Montgomery will open.

Jiji, the name that the 32-year-old guitarist-composer-DJ goes by professionally, fell in love with her instrument at the age of 8.

“My parents had a great influence in my upbringing,” she said, speaking from the University of Indiana in Bloomington, where she teaches. They turned her on to all kinds of music, including American rock ’n’ roll — Eric Clapton, Deep Purple, Jimi Hendrix. “I wanted to play electric guitar, wanted to be in a rock band. But my parents said, ‘No, no, no, classical guitar. You do that for a year and [then] we’ll buy you an electric.’”

They never did, she said, but she got hooked just the same. She pored over performances by the likes of Brazilian brothers Sérgio and Odair Assad and Japan’s Kaori Muraji, who introduced her to Rodrigo’s guitar concerto.

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