LIVE: Strunz & Farah @ Troy Savings Bank Music Hall, 4/15/12

Review and photographs by Andrzej Pilarczyk

The internationally acclaimed acoustic guitar-duo of Strunz & Farah have been performing and recording on the world-music scene since 1980.

That mild and rain-free Sunday evening, in the confines of the acoustic marvel that is the Troy Savings Bank Music Hall, Costa Rican-born Jorge Strunz and Persian-born Ardeshir Farah unleashed a fiery and sizzling set of their original compositions.

Filled with break-neck improvisational runs and melodic interludes, their compositions run a global gamut of musical forms. Gypsy jazz, flamenco, Latin-American classical and popular music, Middle Eastern rhythms and Caribbean Afro-Cuban beats all flew off the stage into the audience and up to the balconies, song after song.

Sitting behind an arsenal of percussive instruments – including congas, timbales and a wooden beat-box – Cuban-born Conrado Garcia set the beat for many a tune.

Rounding out the quartet was American born flutist Rob Herdt, who effortlessly kept up with the dazzling pace of the lightning-fast guitar runs set by Strunz & Farah.

Performing a couple of tunes from their 19th album, “Journey Round the Sun,” the duo’s more-than-30-year collaborative friendship shined on brightly through every song performed that night.