Music / “Boyd Meets Girl”, Rupert Boyd, guitar, and Laura Metcalf, cello. At Wesley Music Centre, August 26. Reviewed by LEN POWER.

CANBERRA-born classical guitarist Rupert Boyd and his American wife, cellist Laura Metcalf, are the duo of Boyd Meets Girl.

After a covid-interrupted Australian tour in 2022, the pair has returned to tour the country with their eclectic mix of music from Bach to the Beatles. They have toured throughout the US, India, Nepal, NZ and every state and territory in Australia.

They arrange much of their repertoire themselves, drawing inspiration from artists across all genres. During their performance, they provided the near-capacity audience with interesting anecdotes about the music and why they are playing it. Their intimate, friendly style quickly won the audience over.

Their program included works by Brazilian composers such as Jaime Zenamon, Radamés Gnattali, Chrystian Dozza, Marián Budoš and Heitor Villa-Lobos. Their playing of these pieces brought out all the passion and vibrancy of this music. Dozza’s very busy “Beetle’s Dance” and Budoš’ intricate and atmospheric “A New York Minute” were the highlights of these works.

The well-known Debussy work, “Arabesque No. 1”, with its sublime melody was given another dimension by the combination of guitar and cello and Franz Schubert’s art song, “Gretchen am Spinnrade”, was haunting and sensitively played.

The duo also played JS Bach’s keyboard compositions of four short “2-Part Inventions”, in their own refreshing and pleasing arrangements that sounded as it if they must have been composed for guitar and cello.

They also played the arrangement by American composer Caroline Shaw of “Shenandoah”.  While the well-known melody was played on the cello, the arrangement for this piece for the guitar gave the work an unexpected memorable depth and emotional sensitivity.

In a lighter mood, they also played two works by Lennon and McCartney, “Blackbird” and “Eleanor Rigby”. These well-known songs with their complex and appealing arrangements were also well played.