By Eileen Wingard
SAN DIEGO — Guitar virtuoso, recording artist, and arranger, Gregg Nestor, has moved back to San Diego after living a number of years in London and Los Angeles. He has recently released five CDs. One of them, Dancing On Air, is a delightful collection of works based on folksongs.
The recording opens with a suite of seven Yiddish folksongs arranged for solo guitar by Nestor. It includes charming renditions of “Oif’n Pripitchok,” “A Brivele der Mame,” and “My Yiddishe Mome.”
The next group, Suite in Modo Polonico, includes Polish court and country dances and two lullabies. It was written by Alexandre Tansman, the Polish-born composer-pianist who lived in Paris from 1920 until moving to the United States during World War II. Tansman wrote this suite for the great guitarist, Andres Segovia who frequently performed it.
When Tansman and his family came to the United States, he settled in Hollywood, where he wrote for the movie studios. In fact, when he first arrived with his wife, Colette Cras, and their two young daughters, he lived with my friend, Clarice Kestenbaum. Clarice’s parents welcomed the Tansman’s into their lovely Westwood home while the newcomers became acclimated to their new surroundings. Clarice was an aspiring concert pianist at the time (She later became a psychiatrist, head of child psychiatry at Columbia University), and her younger sister, Myra, who was studying with Julian Brodetsky, was on the way to becoming a celebrated concert violist. It was Julian Brodetsky’s friend, the famous composer, Igor Stravinsky, who asked Brodetsky to find temporary lodging for Alexandre Tansman and his family.
Clarice described Tansman as debonair and brilliant, considered a Frenchman by the Americans, a Pole by the French, and a Jew by the Poles. It was Tansman who orchestrated George Gershwin’s An American in Paris. While in Hollywood, he wrote movie scores for films such as Flesh and Fantasy, starring Barbara Stanwyck and was nominated for an Academy Award in 1946 for scoring Paris Underground. His large output includes nine symphonies, three operas and concertos for piano, violin, cello and bassoon. Some of his works, such as Isaie le prophete for choir and orchestra, were influenced by his Jewish heritage. The Tansmans returned to Paris after the war.
John Duarte is the composer-arranger of most of the remaining works on the CD, the well-known “Greensleeves,” English Suite with its snappy Jig-like third movement, Suite Piemontese, and Variations On A Catalan Song. Nestor’s arrangement of the “Irish Tune-The Londonderry Air” is a beautiful setting of the familiar “Danny Boy.”
Particularly engaging is “Habanera” by Eduardo Sainz de la Maza. It displays Nestor’s subtle shading and communicative passion.
This is a recording one can listen to numerous times for the beauty of its selections and their excellent execution by Gregg Nestor.
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Wingard is a freelance writer and retired violinist with the San Diego Symphony. She may be contacted at eileen.wingard@sdjewishworld.com