riff notessteve vaijukka iisakkila
21:04 Tuesday, 30 May 2023
Steve Vai: Guitar Legend and Present-Day Composer
Sacramento, California, 1997: during a conversation in a hotel room, Steve Vai and his friend and Dutch music producer Co de Kloet decided to dive into an orchestral adventure. Already a world-famous guitar phenomenon, the ‘Composer Vai’ was still an unknown side of him to many.
Besides some incidental performances with large ensembles and orchestras, it was the cooperation with the Dutch Metropole Orkest and its conductor Dick Bakker that led to the CD/DVD release called Sound Theories. Pieces with and without lead guitar, ranging from very early compositions to brand new ones. After the MO performances, Steve worked with the Dutch NNO (Noord Nederlands Orkest) showing his more symphonic side and inspiring him yet again to write new music, expanding his orchestral repertoire which is recognizable due to a unique melodic and harmonic vocabulary.
After connecting with Finnish conductor Jukka Iisakkila, Steve started a huge project with the working title The Big O: studio recordings of a massive amount of Vai orchestral music. Studio style, hence versions supervised and approved of by the composer himself. In May, 2022 and August, 2022 sessions with the Metropole Orkest and the Tampere Filharmonia were staged. Post-production is in process, but due to the amount of music and the workload attached to it, a definite release date is not yet available.
Amidst all this work and an extensive world tour, Steve will perform with the Tampere Filharmonia and conductor Jukka Iisakkila on September 15. The repertoire will include well known Vai material in a unique orchestral setting as well as exclusive previews of the newly recorded pieces.
For ticket details, head here.
