Why settle for two guitarists when you can have four?

Australian brothers Slava and Leonard Grigoryan are touring with Meng Su and Yameng Wang,  the Beijing Guitar Duo, on the Chinese guitarists' first visit to Australia.

Slava Grigoryan, 41, who with younger sibling Leonard, 33,  performs as The Grigoryan Brothers, says they played with the Chinese duo about three years ago in China.

"We went over there as part of a South Australian delegation to celebrate the state relationship with Shandong province."

The two women were born in the coastal city of Qingdao and met in Beijing while studying at the conservatorium. With many competition awards behind both of them, they decided to team up and have played together in many countries as a duo and with their mentor, Manuel Barrueco, as well as performing as solo artists.

"We got along very well," Grigoryan says.

"Musically there was very good rapport and respect."

Since then, they've all been waiting for another opportunity to play together which isn't easy as Su and Wang are based in the United States ("We're on the opposite side of the world to each other," Grigoryan says) and all the performers have busy touring schedules.

But now they have made it work and Grigoryan says each duet will perform  individual sets and then both will come together as a quartet in both halves of the program.

"It's a mixed program: there's some Chinese music arranged by Gerald Garcia and some Australian music of course."

Among the latter is music by Philip Houghton, whom Grigoryan describes as "one of Australia's greatest guitar figures and composers".

Also on the program are arrangements of excerpts from Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker and Bizet's Carmen and arrangements of vocal works by Bach, de Falla and Tchaikovsky, as well as Spanish pieces by Torroba.

"In our duet set Lenny and I will perform an original composition, which we always include."

The Grigoryan Brothers have been frequent visitors to Canberra, performing as a duo and also with other artists including Paco Pena and The Song Company.

Among his other activities Slava Grigoryan, who's bene based in Adelaide for the last five years,  is the director of the 2018 Adelaide Guitar Festival (August 9 to 12), which he's been arranging for the past couple of years.

He also performs with his wife, Sharon, the cellist in the Australian String Quartet. Together they have a young son, Sebastian (Grigoryan also has two daughters from a previous marriage).

"I'm very excited to bring him into such a musical world."

The Grigoryan Brothers will be performing  Rodrigo’s concerto for two guitars at a concert in next year's Canberra Symphony Orchestra season. But in addition to the classical repertoire they also play jazz, folk and contemporary music.

They have also released several duo albums, four which have been nominated for ARIA awards and performed with symphony orchestras and at international festivals in Australia and Europe.