Ceiling fans brought an interruption of sorts to the start of the 5th Annual Bermuda Guitar Festival. They needed to be switched to a dwaddling pace to prevent sheet music fluttering on stage.

That made for a close atmosphere in the otherwise un-air conditioned St. Andrew's Church – all the more so as a thunderstorm rattled in the distance outside.

But it all added a feeling of authenticity to festival originator Stephen Crawford's self-composed "Morocco", especially as some in the audience were caught on their feet or walking out the back door having mistakingly assumed the interval had arrived only for Crawford to re-emerge on stage accompanied by percussionist Otis Gibbs.

Crawford introduced "Morocco" as his imagined picture of the North African country with all its hustle and bustle, chit-chat on the streets and outside the mosques and markets. Looking around at the audience members standing halfway between seats and back door, the temporary mix-up confusion seemed a perfect visual for the mood the guitarist then created, with Gibbs evoking the searing mid-day heat of Africa with deft touches on a shaker and Djembe drum.

Earlier Crawford had paired up with pianist Oliver Grant and opened the evening with a trip through Vivaldi's Concerto in D Minor, with the standout segment the allegro guisto opener which best matched the two instruments with near flawless time-keeping between the musicians.

But as good as the Vivaldi recital was, it was the follow-on Concierto de Aranjuez by Rodrigo that was the highlight of the guitar/piano combination. There were flashes of flamenco-style guitar breaking into the colourful and precise finger-picking.

Then came the moment the audience was transported to the world of spaghetti westerns with the adagio that sounded for all the world as though it had come from the soundtrack of an early, moody Clint Eastwood 'man with no name' movie.

It was all beautifully captured; the strumming and picking seeming to come effortlessly to Crawford, while Grant sensitively augmented the sound with just enough vibrancy on the piano to beef up the musical tapestry but without overshadowing Crawford's musical punctuation.

The second half of the show brought the pairing of classical guitarist Louise Southwood and violinist David France.

A selection of natty, short Rumanian folk dances set the scene – and it was during this introduction that the pair hit one of their highlights for the evening as they brought the Eastern European selection to a close. Southwood's guitar came across boldly as she sprinkled some defiant strumming flourishes against the foil of France's mesmerising violin playing.

France was at times a revelation coaxing multiple moods and 'voices' from his violin, sometimes jabbing with the bow and at other times simply turning it into a magical wand.

The mood switched to a Brazilian flavour for Celso Machado's Quebra Queixo and then Sambossa, before the final piece d'resistance – a 25-minute history of the tango from the bordels of 1900, to the cafe culture of 1930 and the nightclubs of the 1960s.

It was during this portion of the evening that Southwood and France most delighted, earning a standing ovation for their efforts. France's violin took the lead, but Southwood's guitar added precious moments, and with cleverly interspersed taps and knocks to the guitar body, she kept the audience's ears alert and interested as the musical journey unfolded.

All five musicians gave this 5th Annual Guitar Festival the best of starts, and the clear promise of 2008 being the festival's best year yet.