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Guitar duo lets their fingers do the talking

Guitar Bew Duo... Matt Withers, left, and Bradley Kunda. Photo by Jimmy Walsh.

IT’S been a roller-coaster 12 months for Canberra classical guitarists Bradley Kunda and Matt Withers.

Not only did they release a significant new album, “Landscape: Australian Guitar Duets”, but they’ve recently chalked up a featured recording spot and a 4.5/5-star review of it from the ABC’s “Limelight” magazine.

Withers is just back from a six-month, master-class holiday in Europe, while Kunda is settling into a music PhD under the ANU’s famed guitar guru Timothy Kain.

Both arrived in Canberra at the same time seven years ago, but have actually been playing together for nearly 10 years – they will celebrate their decade in 2012.

Together they form the Guitar Brew Duo, as well as half of the celebrated guitar ensemble Guitar Trek – founded by Kain, who has constantly reinvented the group by changing its artistic line-up.

Both are directors of the Canberra Guitar Society (www.classicalguitarcanberra.org.au), which is in the early process of starting a Canberra Youth Guitar Orchestra for students aged between eight and 18.

Over the past nine years, the pair have won prizes and performed for classical guitar societies in Sydney, Queensland and Victoria and at the Darwin International Guitar Festival. ABC Classic FM’s “Classic Drive” often features them and they have also appeared on ABC Radio’s “Australia All Over” and twice on “Stateline.”

Their debut album “Songs and Dances” was released in 2009. For “Landscape” they sank their life savings into commissioning a witty, seven-movement work by Australian composer Richard Charlton on a culinary theme, with titles such as “March of the Peking Ducks”, “Satay for Eric” [Satie, the composer] and “Tournedos Rossini”.

Now, Withers has released a debut solo album.

Kunda is a gifted arranger, who says he can “turn one guitar into two guitars” and who has composed works inspired by Monet’s “Waterlilies” and Degas’ “Little Dancer of the Gutter”.

Recently, he jointly won the hotly-contested composition prize at Wesley Music Centre.

“It’s only $1000,” says Kunda, “but you have no idea how good it looks on my CV.” He was one of the brains behind the guitar section in the Musica Antica Festival last week at the ANU School of Music.

When it comes to the business of producing records, Withers is the organisational and public relations arm of the duo. With a background as an assistant sound engineer at the ANU’s School of Music, he recorded, edited, mixed and designed all three cds.

He’s also just started a guitar department at the University of Canberra.

But in the end, they’re a team. “We learnt everything on the job,” they say.

Matt Withers is at Wesley Music Centre on October 12 at 12.40pm-1.20pm and in Cooma, at St Paul’s Anglican Church, on October 30 at 3pm.

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Helen Musa

Helen Musa

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