KELSEYVILLE – Fans of classical guitar music also got the story of the instrument's history when David Burgess – a premier performer, larded his concert with brief comments about the history and origins of the music.

The concert – presented by Clear Lake Performing Arts – took place on Sunday, Oct. 4, at Kelseyville's Galilee Lutheran Church.

Burgess has spent most of his adult life traveling, studying and performing in the world's centers of this musical form, including Spain and virtually all the nations of Latin America.

For his Lake County appearance he presented a program designed to show how both the instrument and its music evolved over the years, starting with some of the first music ever written for guitar – by Spanish composers Luis Milan and Alonso Mudarra – shortly after Columbus' discovery of the new world.

He then fast-forwarded to1790, with the "Sonata in D" by one of the era's best-known musicians, Mateo Albeniz.

Albeniz's grandson, Isaac ran away from his demanding musical family at the age of 13, playing piano in bars and bistros throughout South and North America, before returning home to incorporate his experiences into such superb guitar pieces as "Cordoba" and "Leyenda" both expertly performed by Burgess.

Burgess ended the first half of the program with the demanding music of contemporary composer Raphael Rabello, with its complex rhythms and runs.

After intermission, Burgess shifted from history into a musical travelogue of the guitar, opening with a traditional dance from Bolivia, then on to Brazil for "Berimbau" by Baden Powell.

Since the days of the conquistadors, Burgess noted, Spanish music had been blended with the music of the Indians, particularly the Incas, who used a five-tone scale, with emphasis on drums, flutes and a stringed instrument fashioned from seashells.

Later, with the arrival of Africans to South America, their music was also incorporated resulting in the unique sounds and rhythms demonstrated in Burgess's playing of the music of Venezuelan composers Mario Casas Auge and Antonio Laurio. These men took the traditional European waltz, and translated it into the music of their country, including even the sound-alike notes of Venezuela's miniature harp, and rewrote it for the guitar. Burgess's rendition was performed flawlessly.

Perhaps the most popular and prolific composer of Latin American music was Cuban Ernesto Leucona, and Burgess supplied one of his best-known works, "La Comparsa" followed by another of Cuba's modern song writer Eduardo Martin's "Son del Barrio" featured not only the soaring strains of the strings, but punctuation by the expert slapping of the guitar by Burgess.

As a finale, he presented "La Misionera" by Argentina's Fernando Bustamente, but an appreciative audience gave him extended applause, resulting in an encore – "Una Limosne Por el Amor de Dios" a romantic piece often called "Where the Love Starts" by AgustinbBarrio.

This was the first in CLPA's fall concert series. The next takes place on Sunday, Nov. 22, when the full Lake County Symphony, under the direction of John Parkinson, plays at the Marge Alakzsay Center of Clear Lake High School in Lakeport.

Concert time is 3 p.m. and general admission is $20, with an entry fee of $15. for CLPA members. Youths under 18 are admitted free.