By Coral Gables Gazette staff
The cello and the classical guitar do not, on paper, seem like obvious partners. One sustains and sings; the other speaks in plucked, decaying notes that fade almost as soon as they sound. But in the hands of the right players, that contrast becomes the point — and few duos have made a more persuasive case for the pairing than Boyd Meets Girl, the New York ensemble arriving in Coral Gables this weekend.
The Miami Chamber Music Society presents Boyd Meets Girl as part of its 2026 Mainly Mozart Festival on Sunday, June 7, at 4 p.m. at the Sanctuary of the Arts. The performance features special guest pianist Marina Radiushina, and the 4 p.m. ticket includes light bites and refreshments.
The duo
Boyd Meets Girl pairs Australian classical guitarist Rupert Boyd with American cellist Laura Metcalf, acclaimed soloists individually and a married couple based in New York. The duo has toured widely, with performances across the United States, India, Nepal, New Zealand and Australia, including engagements at Caramoor, Newport Classical, Festival Napa Valley, the Morgan Library and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Their two studio albums, recorded on the Grammy-winning label Sono Luminus, have drawn more than four million streams on Spotify. Their 2017 debut reached No. 3 on the Billboard Traditional Classical chart. The duo arranges much of its own repertoire and often speaks from the stage, giving its concerts a conversational quality that mirrors the music’s cross-genre reach.
The program
The Sunday program is a study in deliberate contrast, balancing classical touchstones against contemporary and popular works. It opens with Brazilian guitarist-composer Jaime Zenamon’s “Vivissimo” and Pixinguinha’s “Carinhoso,” arranged by Sérgio Assad, before moving through Chrystian Dozza’s “Beetles Dance” and a Boyd Meets Girl arrangement of Ravel’s “Pavane.”
The classical core of the evening includes four of Bach’s two-part inventions, Beethoven’s variations on “Bei Männern” for cello and piano, and Tárrega’s “Recuerdos de la Alhambra,” one of the most beloved works in the guitar repertoire. The program then opens outward again: Steve Metcalf’s arrangements of the Beatles’ “In My Life” and “Eleanor Rigby,” Caroline Shaw’s “Shenandoah,” and Steven Goss’s “The Big Apple Coaster.”
It is precisely the kind of border-crossing program that has become the duo’s signature: Bach beside the Beatles, Tárrega beside Caroline Shaw, and music the pair has described as ranging from Debussy to Beyoncé.
About the festival and venue
The Mainly Mozart Festival, now in its 24th season, is presented by the Miami Chamber Music Society, a nonprofit dedicated to bringing world-class chamber music to Miami-Dade audiences and commissioning new work across artistic disciplines. The Sanctuary of the Arts, the festival’s Coral Gables home for this performance, is an intimate Andalusia Avenue venue well suited to the close, conversational scale of a cello-and-guitar duo.
Boyd Meets Girl performs Sunday, June 7, at 4 p.m. at the Sanctuary of the Arts, 410 Andalusia Avenue, Coral Gables. Tickets, $13 to $38 including fees, are available through the Miami Chamber Music Society.
