What started as a single USC class in jazz guitar has sprouted into two international tours and a professional venture for four students and their New West Guitar Quartet.

The four, who play alternative jazz, received early support from the USC Thornton School of Music’s Protégé Program, a unique career-launching program that provides mentoring and financial aid for talented student musicians poised to enter the professional ranks.

For the guitar quartet, Perry Smith (BM ’05), John Storie (BM ’06), Brady Cohan (BM ’07) and Matt Roberts (BM ’05), it meant help in producing the group’s first full-length CD and a 2005 tour in Japan. Now, with their formal USC Thornton training in studio and jazz guitar behind them, they are taking Wide Awake, a newly-recorded second album, to Berlin, where the group is representing the City of Los Angeles.

From July 27 until Aug. 19, the New West Guitar Quartet will be the official and only musical representation for Los Angeles at the 2007 German-American Volkfest. The annual festival attracts more than half a million people.

The municipalities of Berlin and Los Angeles are using the festival to celebrate another important milestone – 40 years of their sister city relationship. Toward that end, LA Inc., the Los Angeles Convention and Visitors Bureau, invited the quartet to represent of the City of Angels.

With daily performances during prime time on the festival’s main stage, the New West Guitar Quartet hopes to inject its alternative style and passion for new music into the lively arts scene in Berlin. The Berlin dates will be followed by a one-month-long album tour in the United States.

Members of the quartet are no strangers to service as cultural ambassadors for Los Angeles. At the previous invitation of LA Inc. in 2005, the group performed at the World Expo in Nagoya, Japan, itself the oldest sister city of Los Angeles. The tour of Japan, which included performances in Tokyo and Hiroshima, was organized by USC staff as part of the Protégé Program.

Even as freshman and sophomores, the students were recognized for their potential to make a mark on the profession. The Protégé Program grants, which the group received in 2004 and 2005, allowed the ensemble to produce its first full-length CD, Introducing: New West Guitar Quarter (Flora Records).

All About Jazz magazine described the recording as “both as a mood piece and a statement calling for close attention.” The reviewer added, “It is a fine showcase for the musicians as well as a tribute to the endlessly fascinating and mutable instrument they play.”

The quartet members were more than willing to be “guinea pigs” for the new mentoring program. Looking back at the lessons learned, Storie believes that their involvement with the program “truly enabled us to move ahead in our careers as a performing chamber group.” If they learned anything else from their trip to Japan, it is that life in music can be richly rewarding, but that it can also be very stressful and grueling.

The musicians worked hard this spring to issue their second album, which was released on the Artsong Music label in time for their Berlin performances. Wide Awake further develops the group's signature alternative jazz style infused with pop and rock influences.

The guitarists achieve their distinctive sound by combining the improvisational elements of jazz with the performance standards of a chamber group. Performed with numerous acoustic and electric guitars, the eight original compositions and three inventive arrangements are inspired by the group’s previous musical tours throughout the United States, Canada and Japan.

Berlin will provide yet another source of inspiration, the quartet members said.