Video: Young classical trio charms Morristown audience with Spanish guitar, silky soprano and precocious violin

Hands are precious tools for a classical guitarist.

“Break a fingernail, and you’re done,” Carlos Cuestas said during his New Jersey debut at the Presbyterian Church in Morristown on Saturday.

So we can only imagine the butterflies he must have felt recently while working on a carpentry gig with Bruen Custom Building of Morristown. After hearing Carlos perform, Carl Bruen is likely to think twice before hiring the gifted musician again.

“With talent like that, you can’t take chances,” said Carl, who had outfitted Carlos with an assortment of gloves to protect him during his part-time job.

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Carlos, a 26-year-old native of Colombia, performed selections by Schubert, Villa-lobos, Paganini and Albeniz, and accompanied soprano Elise Figa on songs ranging from Shakespeare’s Top 40 to the Gershwins.  They were joined on several pieces by violinist Eric Rappeport, a Randolph High School senior who will play in Vienna next summer with the New Jersey Youth Symphony.

Congregation members were aglow: Elise, 26, and Eric are products of the church’s music programs. This year Elise is leading the handbell choir, the Ringers on the Green, in addition to teaching voice, performing in classical and folk ensembles and singing at weddings.

Elise and Carlos, who are romantically linked, seem poised to become the Dynamic Duo of classical music, as these video clips suggest.

Carlos is completing a master’s degree at Brooklyn College; his emphasis is nineteenth century music and his concerts highlight the romantic and classic eras.  He has appeared at Avery Fisher Hall and the Brooklyn Academy of Music. While he has played a couple of times at Greenberry’s in Morristown, he said, Saturday marked his first recital in the Garden State.

Elise, who holds music degrees from the Eastman School of Music and Indiana University, is learning guitar (wonder who her teacher is???) so she can delve deeper into folk music. She admires Joan Baez and attended the folk legend’s concert last week at Morristown’s Mayo Performing Arts Center.

But early music is Elise’s bread and butter. As a teenager, when friends might have aspired to become Spice Girls, Elise found herself drawn to older British bands. Much older.

“I always loved Shakespeare texts,” Elise said. “Sometimes they would say, ‘a song.’ And I wondered what that song would have been.”

She has appeared with the Magnificat Baroque Orchestra in San Francisco, sung medieval hits at a German festival and performed with the Carnegie Hall Festival Chorus. With Carlos and keyboard player Masayuki Maki, in a trio called Hausmusik NYC, she gives 19th-century-style house concerts.

Eric, meanwhile, sailed through Bach’s Partita No. 2 in D minor on Saturday. It’s jazz that he finds daunting.

“Jazz is really hard to learn!” he said.

We suspect Eric will figure it out.  He is applying to some top music colleges–while planning to continue studying physics and chemistry.

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