RONALD RADFORD: PLAY OUT YOUR DREAMS

In his hometown of Tulsa, Okla., Ronald Radford's high school friends and family must have thought all that Gypsy music he was listening to and playing had singed his brain. Over their protests, the former rock 'n' roller had decided he was going to New York City to become a flamenco guitarist.

Of course, he had been invited there by the acclaimed flamenco virtuoso Carlos Montoya, and by the time Radford was 19 he had given a Carnegie Hall recital.

Now 49, he is one of America's few acknowledged masters of the flamenco guitar.

Radford will play nine concerts at Cape Girardeau area schools Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, and will give two public concerts next Thursday, Sept. 30.

The first of the public performances will be at noon at the University Club at Southeast Missouri State University. The free concert is open to university faculty, staff, students and other interested persons.

The concert that night will begin at 8 at Old St. Vincent's Church. Tickets are $4 for adults, and $2 for seniors and non-university students. Admission is free for university faculty, staff and students.

Radford's performances are sponsored by the Southeast Missouri Council on the Arts and Southeast Missouri State University's Cultural Programs.

People in Tulsa tried to convince the young Radford that only Spaniards could make a living from studying flamenco guitar.

"When I returned after playing in Carnegie Hall I still had people ask me, `When are you going to get a job?'" Radford said.

Indeed, he acknowledges that the world's greatest flamenco guitarists are Spanish, and he has spent much time studying in Spain. He is the only Fulbright scholar ever to study flamenco guitar, an art form whose traditions have been passed down orally from one generation to the next.

But part of the message Radford incorporates into his performances for school children is that of an Oklahoma teenager who goes to New York City to study something as far out as flamenco.

He tells them to pursue a dream "if you really love something and believe in your heart that you can accomplish it."

The anti-drug message in his program at the schools is subtle, the self-esteem message strong. "It's about saying yes to goals and dreams as a positive way to counterbalance a negative influence," Radford said.

The opposition he met strengthened him. "I can speak with a tremendous amount of authority on the subject of what it takes to develop your talents, what it takes to resist the trend of following the easy path," he said.

"... People develop their abilities and character in life when they're willing to do things they're willing to work hard at."

Most members of his school audiences never have heard flamenco guitar before, certainly not played by a concert-quality performer.

"Sometimes hard rockers say, `That's totally awesome man, I never heard anybody play guitar like that,'" Radford said.

He says he's not sure what drew him to flamenco music, then expounds: "There was a certain emotional and spiritual attraction and power that the music seemed to hold over me.... Anyone who has gotten hooked on any music or art form can identify with that.

"It was one of those transcendent times in my life when I seemed to have the feeling of being connected to the whole universe."

The musical form is rooted in Southern Spain, where the cultures of the Moors, Jews and Gypsies blended at the beginning of the 16th century.

Flamenco music, Radford says, "has the power to evoke images of the culture and the universal qualities of the spirit of the Gypsies."

The widely-traveled Radford moved to St. Louis from Tulsa four years ago because of the city's central location and because it has the second-largest guitar society in the U.S.

During a three-week tour of Southeast Missouri, he will play an additional 28 schools. "This is the largest tour of this kind ever done in the Bootheel," he said.

He said people who love good guitar-playing of any kind will enjoy flamenco. He himself is a big fan of country picker Chet Atkins.

"Flamenco has some of the technical brilliance and syncopations (of bluegrass), also some of the spontaneity and creativity in jazz, and also the ... melodic beauty in classical guitar," he said.

People often get caught up in the fiery emotion of his performances.

"You never know where a flamenco dancer might be lurking in the audience," he said.