The Romero Quartet Concerts this February will be Live and Streamed Live for a Pay-Per-View Audience!

The Romero Quartet Concerts this February will be Live and Streamed Live for a Pay-Per-View Audience!

To kick off our return to live concerts after a two year hiatus due to the covid-19 pandemic, U.S. Classic Guitar President William Jenks is thrilled to present the Romero Quartet, performing their 60th Anniversary Concert in person on the Big Island of Hawaii at the Kahilu Theatre on Wednesday, February 23rd, 2022 at 7 PM; in Los Angeles at The First Congregational Church of Los Angeles on Friday, February 25 at 7 PM; and in Portland at The First Congregational Church of Portland on Sunday, February 27 at 4 PM. Over the last two years U.S. Classic guitar has been very active presenting online virtual concerts and educational outreaches to a world-wide audience and will continue this momentum by continuing to offer events virtually as well adopting a hybrid model of live events streamed simultaneously for a pay-per-view audience. The Romero Quartet concert will also be streamed live on Wednesday, February 23 at 7 PM on Kahilu TV from the Big Island of Hawaii. This important and historically significant performance is part of the acclaimed U.S. International Guitar Series Season 2022 and will be followed by five more classical guitar concerts featuring more of the top artists in the world such as David Russell, Sharon Isbin, Angel Romero, and more. U.S. Classic Guitar has also organized educational outreaches and master classes on the Big Island of Hawaii, Portland, Los Angeles and virtually worldwide. U.S. Classic guitar is a nonprofit 501(C)(3) organization and this concert as well as the remaining activities of the U.S. International Guitar Series Season 2022 are supported in part by ticket sales, donations, sponsorships, and a generous grant by the Augustine Foundation.

This special 60th Anniversary Tour featuring the Romero Quartet (consisting of Celin, Pepe, Celino, and Lito Romero) is a celebration of the birth of the quartet by the founding patriarch Celedonio Romero.  Rightly called the “Royal Family of the Guitar,” not least because of their invention and perfection of the guitar quartet format, the Romeros are the world’s only dynasty of guitar virtuosi, spanning three generations. The renowned Spanish composer Joaquín Rodrigo referred to them as “the grand masters of the guitar,” an assessment confirmed by the Leipzig Volkszeitung, who dubbed them the “Guardians of the Holy Grail of the Classical Guitar,” adding that “[w]hat the ‘Three Tenors’ are to the world of opera, The Romeros are to the classical guitar.”

The sterling reputation of the Romeros has been continually confirmed by repeated appearances with virtually every major symphony orchestra in the United States including those of Boston, Cleveland, Chicago, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Pittsburgh, Detroit and many others. The family has twice been invited to the White House; in 1983 they appeared at the Vatican in a special concert for His Holiness Pope John Paul II, and in 1986 they performed for His Royal Highness Prince Charles, Prince of Wales. Regular festival appearances include the Hollywood Bowl, Blossom, Wolf Trap, Saratoga, Flagstaff and Garden State.

For over 60 years three generations of Romeros have inspired composers to enrich the repertoire of guitar quartet with orchestra, which includes works by such distinguished composers as Joaquín Rodrigo, Federico Moreno Torroba, Morton Gould, Francisco de Madina, Lorenzo Palomo and others. Television fans have seen and heard the Romeros many times on television among them, the Tonight and Today shows as well as on PBS specials and PBS's telecast of Evening at the Boston Pops with The Romeros performing Vivaldi and Rodrigo.

His Royal Majesty King Juan Carlos I of Spain, knighted Celin, Pepe, and Angel into the Order of "Isabel la Catolica", Spain's highest honor. The official ceremony took place at the University of Southern California on February 11, 2000, and included a gala concert performed by The Romeros.

Those who are privileged to hear these world-renowned musicians perform have the delightful opportunity to experience a musical phenomenon: "One of the enduring mysteries of musical talent is how skills seem to flow genetically from musical parent to musical child. In the Romero family the flow has been swift and unimpeded. The virtuosity of the four Romeros was uniformly solid and finely considered, as if these techniques had derived from a single mold" (The New York Times).