"Three tangos by the late Argentine composer Astor Piazzolla, who has suddenly beco-me hot in certain classical music circles, found the SFGQ producing some highly unguitarlike sound effects as well as orthodox music. It was weird and wonderful ." The Dallas Morning News - April 1, 1999 Quartet strums with style Eclectic Santa Fe program brings continents together From the Dallas Morning News / By Olin Chism / Staff Critic of Thursday, April 1, 1999 Uninitiated listeners might assume that all guitar quartets sound more or less alike. A program at the Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center on Wednesday night laid that idea to rest. The Santa Fe Guitar Quartet presented a concert for the Dallas Classic Guitar Society, a year after the Los Angeles Guitar Quartet played for the same group. They proved not to be clones at all. The Los Angeles four placed an emphasis on virtuosity and something close to an orchestral sound. The Santa Fe group, while no less impressive, preferred a more laid-back approach to music-making and made little attempt to create the illusion that the sound was anything other than the guitar's. The Santa Fe Guitar Quartet is named for a region in Argentina, not a city in New Mexico. The quartet's music is, of necessity, almost all transcriptions. Opening Wednesday's program were four numbers from Manuel de Falla's ballet El Amor Brujo, including the familiar "Ritual Fire Dance." Although the music was originally orchestral, It seemed perfectly natural on four guitars. The Santa Fe Quartet, which uses little extraneous physical motion, created a nicely atmospheric performance. A charming Argentine folkloric suite, played once again in a lyrical, low-keyed manner, was followed by an equally charming transcription from. Debussy's Petite Suite for piano duet, which also exists in an orchestral form. The program became muy Argentina with two traditional tangos, the wonderful La Cumparsita and the less-known -- in the United States at least -- Taquito Militar. Those who like their tangos simple might have been disappointed in the florid Santa Fe arrangements, which had the effect of slightly disguising the two works. An Introduction and Fandango by Boccherini was tremendously appealing -- so much so that an immediate repetition of it would have been welcome. ...the quartet [also] played two works by Aaron Copland: Paisaje Mexicano, which is a kind of quiet musical landscape of Mexico, and Danza de Jalisco, which begins so authentically that it sounds native before increasing sophistication gives it away. Three tangos by the late Argentine corn poser Astor Piazzolla, who has suddenly become hot in certain classical music circles, found the Santa Fe Guitar Quartet producing some highly unguitarlike sound effects as well as orthodox music. It was weird and wonderful. The program closed with two more strangely appealing Latin American works: Polca Crucefia from the Andes and El Quitapesares from Venezuela. A couple of Indian folk instruments were brought out for the former.