All Day Friday, April 8, 2011: 9 AM to 9 PM
Concerts, Ensemble rehearsals, and clinics.
World premieres (including Wallace’s “Epitafio”), new and old favorites for solo guitar, ensemble, and guitar orchestra.
Evening concert 7:30 PM, Alumni Recital Hall, Keene State College, 229 Main Street, Keene, NH 03431.
Festival registration:
Auditors: $15
Ensemble participants and performers in clinics: $25 Festival free to participating high school students from New Hampshire, but must register by March 1, 2011. After March 1, 2011, registration is $35.
Call Dr. Jose Lezcano, Director, at 603-358-2180 for more details. Scholarships are also available to participating high school students from New England.
Festival faculty-artists will offer classes and clinics, covering such topics as classical guitar repertoire, technique, musicianship, interpretation,
improvisation, composition and arranging, the guitar in electronic music, flamenco, and jazz.
Visiting guest artists include:
Dr. William Yelverton, Professor of Guitar, Middle Tennessee State University. William Yelverton’s exceptionally diverse repertoire and brilliant technique set him apart as one of today’s most exciting and unique concert artists. He is an award-winning classical guitarist whose eclectic recital programs often include jazz, folk, latin, and flamenco, together with early music performed on Renaissance lute. Since his 1988 European debut in Glasgow, Dr. Yelverton has performed throughout the United States, Europe, Mexico, Canada, and the Caribbean.
Frank Wallace. “Frank Wallace is an accomplished lutenist and vihuelist, a specialist in medieval and Renaissance music, a self-accompanying singer, and a fine guitarist. As though this weren’t versatility enough, he is also a composer,” American Record Guide. Frank has written over 75 songs which he often performs and records with his wife, mezzo-soprano Nancy Knowles. In addition to the New England Conservatory, Wallace has taught at Plymouth State College, Emmanuel College, Keene State College and Franklin Pierce College.
Mezzo-soprano and poet Nancy Knowles has a longstanding reputation for her skillful interweaving of song, poetry and drama both in concert with LiveOak and in her own solo shows. ” Knowles’ exceptionally beautiful soprano carried the evening in song and declaimed poetry…” -The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Aside from the beauty of her voice, audiences and critics comment most about Nancy Knowles’ engaging presence on stage.
Jennifer Yeaton-Parris received a B.A. in music history and a B.M. in flute from the University of New Hampshire, summa cum laude. She received her master’s in music in performance from Boston University and has been a member of the honor society of Phi Kappa Phi since 1988. Yeaton-Parris has performed with the New Hampshire Music Festival, Granite State Orchestra, the Concord and Manchester choral societies, the Cornell Festival Orchestra, the Bach Festival, and the Tamworth Arts Council.
Franziska Huhn, BM, Boston Univerisity; MM, Graduate Diploma, Artist Diploma, New England Conservatory; Artist Diploma, Hochschule für Musik und Theater, Hamburg, Germany. Frequent solo performer nationally and internationally; substitute harpist with the Boston Symphony Orchestra; regular member, Mistral Chamber Players, the Walden Chamber Players, the Radius Ensemble and Collage New Music.
Praised as having “enormous facility on the guitar, a fluent technique, who plays with total confidence and professional expertise, panache and artful spontaneity” (Grammy Award winning guitarist Sharon Isbin), Australian classical guitarist Scott Borg performs extensively as a soloist and chamber musician. His previous engagements have included performances at the Festival Internacional de Guitarra Mérida (Mexico), ICPNA Guitar Festival (Peru), and the Shell Darwin International Festival (Australia). In 2006 he was invited to perform for President Hu Jintao, Peoples Republic of China, at his internationally televised address to the United States of America at Yale University. A versatile performer, he has performed alongside rock legend Carlos Alomar at New York’s Apollo Theatre, and as a winner of Artists International he made his Carnegie Hall debut Weill Recital Hall where New York Concert Review described his performance as “well balanced, gracefully presented, and expertly played
Keene State Faculty Artists:
Dr. Jose Lezcano. A twice grammy-nominated guitarist and composer, he has performed for audiences on four continents. His programs featuring Latin, standard repertory, and original compositions have taken him as recitalist, collaborative musician, and concerto soloist from Carnegie Recital Hall and the North-South Consonance Series in New York City to major festivals in Spain, South America, China, the Czech Republic and Germany. Dr. Lezcano coordinates the KSC Guitar program, directs the Guitar Orchestra, and teaches courses in Latin American music.
Ted Mann: B.M., M.A., award-winning composer, is on the music faculty at Keene State College in Keene, NH where he teaches courses in the history of rock and roll, counterpoint, analytical techniques, guitar classes, private guitar and lute instruction. He has performed in venues from Boston to New York City and across the country as a soloist and with a variety of groups including the Vivaldi Traveling Circus Orchestra of Manhattan and the Nashua Chamber Symphony.
Keene State Alumni Artists:
Jeremy Milligan received his Bachelor’s Degree in from Keene State College in 2001, where he graduated with honors and was awarded KSC’s ‘Instrumentalist of the Year’ Award in 2001. In 2005 Jeremy traveled to the ‘La Janda’ school in Vejer de la Frontera, Spain where he studied Spanish Language and Flamenco guitar styles. He is currently completing his Master’s Degree at the Prestigious Hartt School of Music at the University of Hartford where he is studying with Richard Provost and specializing in Suzuki Guitar pedagogy. Jeremy is currently teaching Suzuki and traditional classical guitar at Northampton Community Music Center in Northampton, Massachusetts and at Pakachaug Community Music School in Auburn, Massachusetts.
International-prize-winning guitarist David Ross is a musician of unique abilities, comfortable in many styles and equally at home in the concert hall and the jazz club. An advocate of new music, David continually seeks to reach a wider audience for the classical guitar through performance, teaching, and outreach. After earning a B.M. in Guitar Performance and a B.A. in composition and theory from Keene State David went on to receive a M.M. and a Performance Diploma at the Peabody Conservatory of Johns Hopkins where he served as the assistant to the renowned guitar dept. David studied classical guitar under the tutelage of Jose Lezcano and Julian Gray and studied jazz with Paul Bollenback and saxophonist Gary Thomas. As well as being an avid performer David has also been active as a composer. His most recent work, Wake Me When It’s Over, a guitar solo, was premiered at the Patterson Theatre in Baltimore by the composer with the Dilettante Dance Company. David teaches at the Vermont Jazz Center and directs the “First Saturday’s” classical music series at the Starving Artist in Keene, NH.
Guitar Festival Schedule (subject to change)
Guitar Festival Schedule April 8, 2011
Time Clinic / Performance Instructor/Performer Location
9:00 – 9:30 Registration
9:30 – 11:30 Large Ensemble Rehearsal / Recital Hall
12:30- 2:15 Yelverton / Clinic / Recital Hall
12:30 – 2:15 Guitar, Midi, and Tech / Mann / Music Tech Lab
2:15 – 2:40 Scott Borg / Recital Hall
3:00 – 3:45 Latin American Guitar / Lezcano / Choral Room
3:00 – 3:45 Songwriting and guitar/ Wallace / Recital Hall
4:00 – 4:50 Alumni Concert / Recital Hall
5:00 – 6:00 Ensembles / Recital Hall
6:00 – 7:00 Dinner / possible extra large ensemble rehearsal
7:30 PM Alumni Hall Evening Concert
Featuring Lezcano / Huhn Duo, Frank Wallace, Nancy Knowles, Jennifer Yeaton-Parris,
William Yelverton, and KSC Festival Guitar Orchestra
All festival participants will be sent information about visitor parking at Keene State College, lodging in the area, and recommendations on local restaurants.
*Large Ensemble works, parts will be mailed to students and/or directors of visiting ensembles beforehand.
Registration Form:
Name:_______________________ Length of time studying guitar ___________________________.
High School or College ________________________________.
Street Address_______________________________
City_______________ State ____________________
Phone:_________________________
Email____________________________
Name of Teacher or Reference________________________________ Teacher’s phone and/or email ___________________________________ Please clip and mail to:
Dr. Jose Lezcano
Keene State Guitar Festival, Director
229 Main Street
Keene NH 03431
Please check those topics you are most interested in: (a) Technique
(b) Musicianship on the guitar
(c) Improvisation
(d) Classical guitar
(e) Flamenco guitar
(f) Jazz guitar
(g) Ensemble playing
(h) Composition for the guitar
(I) The guitar in electronic music
