I’ve been falling a little behind with the website updates and I’m just now getting around to some events and photos from several weeks ago.
Last month, we had the fourth annual Green Guitar Youth Festival Graz. It’s organized by two friends of mine, local guitarists José Maria Obeso and Stefan Skrilecz. It’s a new, ambitious festival and keeps getting better every year! This year opened with a beatiful solo recital by Austrian guitarist Florian Palier featuring works off of his recent CD release Poetry and Colors. It was a real treat to hear him perfoming for the first time on the guitar that I recently made for him. It's not every day that we get to see such an expressive guitarist really testing the nuances, colors and dynamics of our instruments! The Second evening was a guitar and flute duo concert with Hugo Fernando González and Maria Beatrice Cantelli. It was an energetic and musical performance; one of the best renditions of Piazolla’s Histoire du Tango that I’ve seen live. The third evening was a Gypsy Jazz concert on the Murinsel featuring a new Selmer style guitar made by a friend of mine and fellow Grazer guitarbuilder Christoph Seewald. The Sunday matinee concert began with a variety of student ensembles and finished with Rodrigo’s Concerto Andaluz. Four guitars and orchestra! The fifth and final event was a CD release show by local jazz guitarist Stefan Oser at Churcill Bar. I get see him and José play there fairly often since I live just around the corner, but this was a special night with a whole slew of guest artists.
It was a great four days and I was really thankful to be a part of it and also get to see a bit more first-hand how much work this sort of thing can be to organize. They really did an awesome job with the whole thing.
