Beppe Gambetta and Peter Ostroushko: live
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Beppe Gambetta and Peter Ostroushko: live
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Concert review
Beppe Gambetta and Peter Ostroushko “Every Italian home has a bottle of Champagne chilling for the day that Berlusconi goes to jail,” quipped guitarist Beppe Gambetta during his packed AMP concert with Peter Ostrouschko at Albuquerque’s Cooperage on March 6. Gambetta was explaining how he almost popped the cork prematurely on that bottle of bubbly when he learned that one of his recordings was climbing the charts in America. It was one of many light hearted celebratory moments in an evening that also included some of the most lovely, even seriously emotional, Americana music heard in Albuquerque in many a moon. The concert featured an Italian in love with American music in a performing partnership with a Ukrainian American mandolin & violin virtuoso, both well known to audiences of Garrison Keillor’s “A Prairie Home Companion”. Like Prairie Home on its best nights, this show was a magical evening of cross-pollinated roots, jazz, and folk. Gamebetta’s jaw-dropping skills as a flat picker, and his astonishing self effacing modesty added to the enchantment of the evening. Peter Ostroushko revealed both extraordinary musical skills on mandolin and a sense of humor at least equal to his concert mate’s. “I felt pretty old when I wrote this tune,” he commented while tuning, “and it sounds kind of Italian, so I guess this is an old Italian folk-tune, or it could be.” Ostroushko added that he still enjoys royalty checks from recordings by prominent Irish musicians, Sharon Shannon among them, of a particular “ancient Irish tune” which he himself actually composed. This concert truly felt like an evening in a warm parlor among friends sharing the joy of two musical masters visiting us, and it was an evening that will go on and on in memory for all those who shared it all. – Bill Nevins We could not get any music from this concert for you, but here is a performance by the duo from a festival in Italy recently, just to give you a taste. - Bill Nevins
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