When New York–based classical guitarist and Latin Grammy nominee Larry Del Casale checked his inbox one morning in 2023, he was surprised to find a brand-new score from guitarist-composer Leo Brouwer. Less than a month earlier, Del Casale had commissioned the single-movement work for guitar and string quartet from the Cuban master, and Brouwer promptly delivered Contradanza Cubana.
For Del Casale, who is in his mid-60s, commissioning his first work from Brouwer was more than a professional milestone—it was a tribute to his longtime friend and collaborator Carlos Barbosa-Lima, the Brazilian virtuoso with whom he shared a 23-year partnership spanning international tours and multiple recordings.
“Carlos and Brouwer were close, and I felt I wanted to do something to honor Carlos,” he says. “I’d never met Leo but reached out to him by email to discuss a commission. I told him I wanted a work for string quartet and guitar, and this is what he came up with. I consider this piece a nugget.”
With this new commission and his latest album, Homage, Del Casale reflects on a life shaped by collaboration—in the classroom, onstage, and in the studio—and celebrates the relationships that continue to define his music. Speaking from his home in Mahopac, he discussed Homage, the enduring influence of Barbosa-Lima, and the experience of commissioning a new work by Brouwer—a story that bridges past and present.
Bronx Roots
Del Casale’s musical path began in his youth at a neighborhood music store in the Bronx, New York. He eventually played covers by progressive-rock bands but turned to classical guitar in his late teens. “I was looking to get serious when I met Ernesto Cordero, a guitarist and composer from Puerto Rico,” he recalls. “Ernesto taught me about music reading, classical-guitar technique, tone, and color. He was a great influence on me. After he went back to Puerto Rico I started studying with Albert Valdes-Blain, a student of Andrés Segovia. He taught many guitarists in New York who went on to prominent teaching and performing careers.”
Del Casale’s early studies laid the foundation for a disciplined classical approach and deep respect for tone and phrasing. Valdes-Blain emphasized traditional repertoire by Fernando Sor, Heitor Villa-Lobos, J.S. Bach, and others.
At Mannes College of Music, where he studied under Valdes-Blain and later Michael Newman, Del Casale discovered his enduring love of ensemble performance—an influence that would shape his later partnership with Barbosa-Lima. “I was at Mannes when I got into ensemble playing,” Del Casale says. “Michael Newman took over the ensemble program and really opened it up.”
After graduating, Del Casale gave his debut recital at Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall in the late 1980s. He played solo pieces by Sor and Cordero but devoted most of the program to chamber music. “A reviewer—Allan Kozinn—described it as an ensemble night,” Del Casale remembers. “He wrote that I proved to be a solid, musical performer in the ensemble world. I never really left that world. I prefer the energy I feel playing with other people.”
Crossing Paths
While still at Mannes, Del Casale began working with Puerto Rican lyric mezzo-soprano Tuli Toro. In 1994, he recorded his first album, Zenobia, with her, accompanying the singer in a program of art songs penned by Cordero. It was during a concert stop in Puerto Rico in the late 1990s that Cordero introduced Del Casale to Barbosa-Lima.
“At that time Carlos was touring all over the world as a soloist, but his hub was Puerto Rico,” Del Casale says. “He had an apartment there and knew Ernesto, who introduced us at a restaurant. After that, whenever I knew Carlos was coming to New York, I’d set up concerts for the two of us to play.”
From that initial connection, a fruitful partnership evolved that lasted 23 years, until Barbosa-Lima’s passing in 2022. Their work included tours of Europe and the Americas—with three appearances at Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall—and three albums.
“Carlos was a very easygoing and good person,” says Del Casale. “We spent a lot of time together on the road in Europe and elsewhere. Working with him was amazing. Carlos and I worked hard at our ensemble playing to really get things in sync. One reviewer described our work as a ‘mind-meld.’”
Alongside his performing career, Del Casale maintained a full-time position as a high-school music teacher in New York’s Peekskill City School District. “I taught music in the public schools for 30 years doing guitar ensembles, string orchestra, and more,” he says. “It’s hard to make a living just being a performing guitarist. You can make good money as a music teacher, get benefits, and retire with a pension. My job gave me time off in the summers and holidays so I could play the summer festivals in Europe with Carlos. It was great for me—and the kids keep you young!”
The Duo on Record
Del Casale contributed to several of Barbosa-Lima’s recordings on the Zoho Music label. Notably, one was the Latin Grammy–nominated Beatlerianas, an all–Leo Brouwer program featuring arrangements of seven Beatles songs for guitar and string quartet alongside the composer’s five Micropiezas, played by the Barbosa-Lima and Del Casale duo. “Carlos was very good in the studio—he really knew how to record,” Del Casale recalls.
The guitarists also collaborated on Carlos Barbosa-Lima Plays Mason Williams (2016) and Delicado (2019). The release of Delicado was overshadowed by the Covid-19 pandemic; their only concert to promote it took place in New York on the day lockdown was ordered. “We had to play that gig because Carlos needed the money to get back to Brazil afterward.” Barbosa-Lima would spend his final years in his home country.
Del Casale describes the music on Delicado as landing somewhere between the classical and Brazilian-jazz worlds. Barbosa-Lima was renowned for arrangements that spanned classical masterworks, Brazilian and Hispanic traditions, American pop songs, jazz standards, and more. Their diverse repertoire enabled the duo to move seamlessly between bookings at concert halls, classical festivals, and New York’s jazz clubs.
Because Delicado never got the attention Del Casale felt it merited, his new release, Homage, includes four tracks featuring Barbosa-Lima culled from that album: up-tempo arrangements of Zequinha de Abreu’s “Tico Tico” and Antônio Carlos Jobim’s “A Felicidade,” along with tender versions of Waldir Azevedo’s “Delicado” and Tom Jobim’s “Eu Não Existo Sem Você.”
Filling a Gap
For Del Casale, the Brouwer commission was both a tribute to his late friend Barbosa-Lima and an effort to enrich a repertoire that remains surprisingly thin. “I gave its world premiere on June 25, 2025, at the New York Guitar Seminar at Hunter College with the Bergamot Quartet,” he recalls.
The choice of Brouwer was purposeful. Barbosa-Lima had long championed his friend’s music, including Beatlerianas (c. 1986) and Quintet (1957), both for guitar and string quartet, and Del Casale hoped the new piece would join that lineage. “We have the Boccherini quintet and one by Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco, but not many others,” he notes.
The collaboration began with practical questions. “The length of the composition determines what his fee will be,” Del Casale explains. “Next, he asked me what pieces of his I liked because he wanted to write something I would enjoy. I told him I loved his solo-guitar pieces ‘Danza Characteristica,’ ‘Berceuse,’ and ‘Danza de Altiplano.’ In my wildest dreams I never thought he would come up with this 19th-century-styled piece.”
Dancing through Time
Brouwer’s music often reflects Cuban cultural history by incorporating dance rhythms brought to the island by African slaves and blending them with European classical forms. Yet his work always sounds modern, with its dissonant harmonies, meter shifts, and rhythmic surprises.
As signaled by the title Contradanza Cubana, Brouwer draws on a dance rhythm popular in Cuba in the early 19th century. Throughout the multi-sectioned work, he alternates between lyrical melodic writing and rhythmic passages based on contradanza and habanera.
Del Casale deftly navigates a part that juxtaposes fleet-fingered runs with soft harmonics, dulcet melodies, and accented chord jabs. In the score, Brouwer highlights the foundational rhythm by marking “Contradanza” 33 bars in and again at the recap 119 bars later. A tongue-in-cheek inscription—“Saumell visita a Shostakovich”(“Saumell visits Shostakovich”)—appears a third of the way through, placing innovative Havana composer Manuel Saumell (1818–1870) together with Russian symphonist Dmitri Shostakovich (1906–1975).
As Saumell did, Brouwer alternates and develops his prima and segunda themes. The result is a radiant, style-refracting addition to the guitar-ensemble repertoire.
Paying Homage
In tribute to his longtime friend and colleague, Del Casale’s Homage celebrates their decades of musical collaboration. Its tracks draw on repertoire arranged by Barbosa-Lima that the duo performed throughout the years, with a few notable exceptions: the guitar duet “Squares Suspended,” composed by Andrew York (on which York joins Del Casale), and the premiere recording of Contradanza Cubana, featuring Del Casale with the Bergamot Quartet.
To realize the project, Del Casale enlisted fellow guitarists João Luiz, Andrew York, Gerry Saulter, and Francisco Roldan to play Barbosa-Lima’s parts. Guest instrumentalists include the Bergamot Quartet, flutist Michelle La Porte, percussionist Duduka da Fonseca, pianist Helio Alves, and bassist Nilson Matta.
With this joyful recording, Del Casale revisits colorful territory from his musical journey while looking ahead. “I’ve had a full music life between teaching and touring,” he reflects. “Performing with Carlos was a high point in a long career.” Now, with Homage—and a new piece from Leo Brouwer—Del Casale honors his past collaborations while continuing to find joy in making music with others.
What He Plays
Larry Del Casale’s main instrument is a 2022 Richard Prenkert classical guitar with a cutaway, built with a California redwood cedar top and Indian rosewood back and sides. He strings it with Savarez Cantiga Premium basses (including a carbon-fiber G) and Savarez New Cristal trebles, all in normal tension. For ensemble settings, he amplifies with a Barbera pickup system through a Fishman Loudbox Mini amplifier. —MS
