by Stephanie Manning
Hao Yang and Kevin Loh have performed as the Kaleido Guitar Duo fewer than five times, but that felt far from obvious after hearing their recent concert at the Cleveland International Classical Guitar Festival. The two musicians — Yang from China, Loh from Singapore — have a natural chemistry, committed to exploring new works and performing them at a high level.
The opening piece on their June 5 concert, Stephen Dodgson’s Pastourelle, emphasized this alignment in vision. The two guitarists treated the audience in Mixon Hall to a work that is by turns playful and mysterious, keeping an effortless synchronization all the while.
While Dodgson wrote extensively for guitar, the rest of the program spent plenty of time venturing outside the standard repertoire. That’s the Kaleido Duo’s bread and butter, Loh explained from the stage. Both musicians are interested in lesser-known works, transcriptions, and arrangements that capture the kaleidoscope of musical possibility.
Those colors were on full display during Claude Debussy’s Suite bergamasque, arranged by Matteo Mela and Lorenzo Micheli. Many piano arrangements work beautifully on guitar, and this one in particular highlights its warm sound world. Yang and Loh gave the piece a gentle but precise touch, especially during the famous “Clair de Lune,” where Yang played the calming melody as the trees behind the glass rustled in the wind.
Tan Dun’s Eight Memories in Watercolor had a similar feel. Filled with longing, this suite is the composer’s Opus 1, which he wrote shortly after leaving his hometown to study at the China Central Conservatory of Music. The duo chose four of the eight selections, although where those began and ended blended together as they went on.
“Herdboy’s Song,” with its glissandos and slides, created a sound reminiscent of a Chinese traditional zither called the guqin. This effect comes across even stronger on guitar than it does on piano, a nod to the strength of Manuel Barrueco’s transcription.
For the third and final piano piece, the duo tackled Alberto Ginastera’s Piano Sonata No. 1, arranged by Sergio Assad. This is quite a technical and demanding work, where the players essentially operate as one instrument with a huge range.
Loh carefully tuned his instrument down while Yang spent much of her time playing up high — taking advantage of her prowess in the upper registers. Their performance lived up to the title of the third movement, Adagio molto appassionato, and their pauses were quiet enough to hear the whoosh of the hall’s air conditioning.
Returning to original guitar repertoire, Rolando Dyens’ Niterói (Hidden Waters) played with tempos more freely, emphasizing a push and pull between the duo that concluded with a kind of friendly musical duel. Loh shouldered most of the piece’s heavy lifting, laser-focused on his left hand’s pitch bends and other dramatic slides.
If concerts had an award for best piece title, this evening’s recognition would definitely go to Stephen Goss’ The Raw and the Cooked, a humorous name that actually comes from a complex anthropological theory. Luckily, the music favors the lighthearted approach, presented in a series of six miniatures. Towards the end, Loh and Yang found an irresistible groove, capping off the piece — and the concert — on a high note.
Published on ClevelandClassical.com June 17, 2026
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