The Guitar Foundation of America convention is finally over and people are slowly trickling out of the hotel. It was an amazing convention and I had a awesome time. Saw old friends, made new friends and heard some beautiful guitars and music. Unfortunately, I was having such a great time that I almost completely forgot to take photos.
Some of the highlights included the premiers of Kevin Callahan's new piece Possessed that was beautifully played by Artyom Dervoed, a night of guitar concertos performed by Francisco Bernier, Pablo Villegas and Carlos Barbosa-Lima including the world premier of Sergio Assad newest guitar concerto, a mind-blowing solo concert by Pavel Steidl and of course a amazingly beautiful performance by the Assad brothers of some of the pieces that I've obsessively listened to on their recordings probably hundreds of times. My friend Max and I were also lucky enough to hear a private audition of Pavel trying out my guitar in which he played the entire Chaconne for just the two of us! A very generous person and a crazy good guitar player.
In other news, I recorded two new videos of Michael Nicolella playing my new guitar. It some wonderfully expressive playing. There is also a recording of me playing the same guitar. Check em out!