Nadav Lev, New Strings Attached

As always this blog is about guitar and bass playing in virtually any style. Today we delve into contemporary modern classical works that include classical acoustic or electric guitar, as nicely presented on Nadav Lev's New Strings Attached (DELOS 3488). The album is subtitled "Contemporary Music for Guitar by Young Israeli Composers," and that indeed is what we have.

Nadav Lev is a guitarist of both traditional and unconventional virtuosity. The works, six by six composers, cover a wide range of new music attitudes and chamber styles. Nadav himself plus Gilad Cohen, Yair Klartag, Jonathan Keren, Guy Barash and Ronnie Reshef each contribute a composition or composition set.

All of them give us some magnificent guitar realizations that are at times mind-boggling. Along with Lev's continual and vital presence is a spectrum of fellow performers: the Mivos String Quartet, mezzo-soprano Rinat Shaham, violinist Miranda Cuckson, soprano Tehila Nini-Goldstein, mezzo-soprano Re'ut Ben-Ze'ev and the live electronics of Guy Barash.

The music is contemporary avant and uniformly worthwhile. The guitar work is excellent and sometimes even astonishing. Lev is a master!

If you want to be exposed to something exceptional and have a sense of adventure, New Strings Attached gives you all of that without fail!