I have so many fond memories of my LHS days: listening to the incredible homeroom “announcements” comedy routines, my extended pun contests with Mr. Ransegnola, goofing around with friends on lunch breaks…but my most vivid ones are musical: sharing a recital with Jay Greenspan, me playing classical guitar and him reciting Shakespeare, and of course, the Battle of the Bands. Euphoria (we called ourselves “Jew-phoria”) earned an incredible underdog win in our Junior year, but our senior year triumph was tragically snatched from us for two reasons:  we went WAY too esoteric in our repertoire (who listens to “Watcher of the Skies” by Genesis?) and having our lead singer almost get electrocuted onstage in a puddle of water from a failed attempt at a smoke machine.  The ultimate indignity: we had to come out and mop the stage after our set.

When I graduated, I knew I wanted to follow my passion and study guitar at college.  I had two choices: go to Mannes Conservatory in NYC, where I had done my pre-college work on the weekends, or go to USC in Los Angeles.  Not a hard choice to go to SoCal, especially because they also had a great studio guitar program, and I fancied myself as a “jack-of-all-trades” kind of musician. As it turned out, once I got there and started studying with my lifetime mentor, the great Spanish virtuoso Pepe Romero, I dedicated myself fully to classical. Things worked out: I won an international competition in Toronto in my Senior year and took a top prize in the Radio-France Paris competition when I finished my Masters.  I ended up joining the guitar faculty at USC when I graduated, and I’ve been teaching there to this day.

I sometimes think back about that decision of choosing to go to LA instead of staying on the East Coast, and how differently my life would have ended up.  I never would have met Colette, my dear wife of 42 years (we met at my first paying gig in LA, at a party in a cigar store in Beverly Hills). I never would have formed a little guitar quartet at college, which would become the Los Angeles Guitar Quartet. And I wouldn’t have our fantastic daughter Camille and brilliant son-in-law Max, living just five minutes away from us in Whitter. CA. So many other things might have turned out differently for me, but of course that’s a parallel universe that I can’t really speculate about.

My path from starting out as a dilletante guitarist to becoming a professional wasn’t always clear, but I know that I always loved music and wanted it to be a major part of my life. Winning those early competitions helped, but it was really my quartet (we’re popularly known as LAGQ) that got us known in the insular world of classical guitar.  Lots of early breaks came our way: opening for Barry Manilow at Hollywood Bowl, being part of an “Evening at Pops” PBS show (with Jason Alexander as narrator!), getting our first record deals with Delos and Sony.  Once we became a bit of a household name, we started pumping out records every two years or so, including one for Telarc called “LAGQ’s Guitar Heroes”. We created tributes to great guitarists who inspired us to learn the instrument, including Jimi Hendrix, Chet Atkins, Django Reinhardt and others; I even did a flamenco-inspired version of “Mood for a Day” by Steve Howe of YES (anyone remember me playing that at an LHS talent show?).  We were very fortunate that it won a Grammy for Best Classical Crossover Recording.  What I’m most proud of with that one is that my early love for all kinds of guitar music ended up coming full-circle after years of classical training.  So, I guess I became a jack-of-all-trades after all.

Another project we did came after we happened to meet John Cleese of Monty Python backstage at a gig in Santa Barbara.  He told us he wanted to do a project with us: but what?  I ended up adapting Cervantes’ “Don Quixote” into a three-act stage production for narrator and guitar quartet, with him reading dramatic excerpts from the book, and us accompanying him with contemporary versions of Spanish Renaissance tunes. We premiered it with him two years later, but his professional career was too busy for him to tour with us.  Instead, I met Phil Proctor of the Firesign Theater, who became our Man of La Mancha for extended tours and a video of the production.  Here’s the ironic thing, though: during most of my free time during my LHS years, I listened obsessively to Monty Python and Firesign Theater sketches, committing them to memory. Thirty years or so years later, I got to share the stage with two of my comic heroes, and I’ve remained dear friends with Phil Proctor (“Dear friends…”)

Since then, we’ve been doing some other cool collaborations, including having jazz great Pat Metheny writing an epic-27-minute work for us (“Road to the Sun”) and recordings with the Conspirare Choir in Austin and with Brazilian singer Luciana Sousa. I’ve kept up my solo playing as well, recorded a bunch of solo CD’s as well as projects with other musicians (most recently “British Invasion” with the Alexander String Quartet), and I tour around the country pretty regularly, including two dates near LHS in February. You can check out my concert schedule, as well as LAGQ’s in case you wanted to see what I’ve been up to: click Bill Kanengiser Calendar or  LAGQ Tour

I mentioned that I’ve been on the faculty of the Thornton School of Music for 42 years. I feel very fortunate to work with talented, dedicated students, to guide them in their journeys to become better guitarists, musicians and individuals.  I also have a deep connection to USC, in that my daughter and son-in-law met each other in their first week of classes at the USC Cinema School, she studying Animation and he Interactive Media.  Now they both work for Epic Games, doing art and technical stuff that are completely beyond my capability to comprehend.  The other aspect of USC that I’ve become deeply involved with is Musicians’ Wellness.  I co-founded the Thornton Wellness Committee 12 years ago, and I developed a course in Musicians’ Health and Wellness, as well as curating a visiting lecture series, coordinating auditory, laryngeal and musculoskeletal screenings, and making students and faculty aware of all the USC resources available for musicians’ long-term wellbeing.  I’ve always been fascinated by the medical/biomechanical side of playing, so it was natural for me to do a deep dive into topics like body awareness, injury prevention, hearing health, performance anxiety, and other issues that musicians need to know to have a long, thriving relationship with their art.

It’s heartening to read the other Spotlight entries, to hear about all the cool and important work that my LHS colleagues have done in their lives. I think that we were pretty lucky to be there at that time, giving us all some solid foundations for our lives. Thanks to Michael for setting all of this up to keep us thinking back to those awkward, boring, exhilarating and hysterically funny times in our lives.

To see some performances, visit my YouTube channels at the following links: YouTube Bill Kanengiser  and YouTube LAGQ