Monthly Meeting Recap and News for July 2024
Greetings guitar fans,
Welcome to this month’s newsletter. Read below for a recap of our last meeting and upcoming guitar events coming this month! There’s also a special report on Grant’s visit to the Guitar Foundation of America conference this year.
The Monthly Meeting
There was a hot time in the ol’ town on Thursday night! The packed tasting room was warm and full of good music.
PROGRAM
Trillium (Francie Buckley, Judy Trautman, Kristi Schoenbachler) + 1 (Grant Ruz) – Dacw ‘Nghariad (trad. Welsh), Passacaglia by Lou Warde
Matt Bock – La Vals Espanole by Jose Ferrer, La Folia Variations by R. de Vidali (arr. Frank Longay)
Bob Bath – Europa by Carlos Santana
John Swinnerton – Introspection (original)
Mystic Bard (Francesco Bard, Heather Hutton) – Escape from the 12th House, Piscean Revelation (originals)
Brian Parris – Someone I Used to Know by Jack Clement, Long Long Time by Gary White
Mark Turnbull – Dogs, This Mortal Coil (originals)
Matt Dorris – Milonga by Jorge Cardoso
~ Intermission ~
Cameron O’Connor from Corvallis then took the stage and played a wonderful set, receiving a standing ovation and playing an encore for us.
All in Twilight (1st mvt) by Tori Takemitsu
Theme, Variations, and Finale by Manuel Ponce
Farewell by John Dowland
Land of Enchantment by Michael Chapdelaine
Toodle-oo, Winter Waltz by Cameron
Granada by Isaac Albéniz (arr. Segovia/O’Connor)
Homenaje by Manuel de Falla
Cádiz by Albéniz (arr. Bream/O’Connor)
Outreach Corner
Grant Ruiz will play a set of Flamenco and Latin American music at the Jacksonville Library on Saturday, July 20, 2024 from 2pm to 3pm. This event is sponsored by the GSSO.
Announcements
On Sunday, August 4, Mystic Bard will play at Paschal Winery from 3:30 to 5:30pm.
For those of you interested in other guitar events, Hawaiian slack key guitarist Stephen Ingliss will play with pedal steel guitarist Barry Sless (who has played with Bobby Weir and Phil Lesh of the Grateful Dead) at Weisinger Family Winery on Friday, July 19 at 7pm. You can get more information here.
We’re thinking of starting a “classifieds” section of this newsletter, helping to connect people who are selling and looking for guitars. Watch this space! If you have a guitar for sale or are looking for one, please write to grantruiz@ashlandhome.net.
Please consider becoming a member of the guitar society! Annual dues are $25 for individuals and $40 for a family membership (2 or more people) and help pay for logistical costs. They are good for the calendar year, January through December. Performers, teachers, luthiers, and repair people will have the added benefit of being included in the upcoming Resource page of our website, plus the Society will help announce your services.
Grant’s GFA trip report
Hi, this is Grant, GSSO’s field reporter (for now). I went to the Guitar Foundation of America conference from Monday, June 17 to Saturday, June 22 at Cal State Fullerton. I attended the preliminaries, semifinals, and finals of the international competition. Dragos Ilie, who played a wonderful concert for us in May, made it all the way to the final four out of forty! He mysteriously ended up finishing third. Dragos recently posted on Facebook saying that some people disagreed with his choice to end his set with A Night in Tunisia by Dizzy Gillespie, which he played for us as an encore in May. You can catch his complete performance in the finals here. All of the finalists were stunning players and worth checking out:
1. Leonela Alejandro (Puerto Rico)
2. Hao Yang (China)
3. Dragos Ilie (Romania)
4. Francisco Luis (Portugal)
During the conference I got to hear some wonderful concerts, including by Patterson & Sutton (cello and guitar), Duo Mantar (mandolin and guitar with Adam Levin), Petra Polackova, Andras Csaki, the Canadian Guitar Quartet, the Kupinski Duo, and Paul Galbraith, who was inducted into the GFA Hall of Fame at the end of the week. Check these people out as well if you love the classical guitar. Listening to such extraordinary guitar music was uniquely inspirational.
I also attended lectures on arranging pop tunes for the guitar, the origins of the guitar quartet, guitar education, and guitars as a energy transference devices. At the last lecture I got to play a guitar with no back. It sounded just as bad as you might imagine.
Probably the most fun was hanging out with and talking to other guitarists like Elina Chekan (who concertized here with her husband René Izquierdo in November ’23), Bill Kanengiser of the LAGQ, Meng Su, Andy Levin, Adam del Monte, Martha Masters (Director of the GFA), Michael Partington, Paul Galbraith, and composer Steven Goss. Adam, Martha, Michael, and Paul have all played for the guitar society, and all had fond memories of being here. (Michael and Martha were our first guitar series artists back in 2004!). I also got to spend time with luthiers Greg Byers, Jennifer Trowbridge, and Jack Sanders. Jack was the guitar instructor at my alma mater, Pomona College.
If you ever want to seriously geek out on classical guitar, the GFAs are a great place to be. Next year they will be in Louisville, Kentucky.
