Irina Kulikova is a young classical guitarist with a bright future ahead of her. Even though her career is still in its infancy, she has already made a strong name for herself by traveling the world and performing in some of the most renowned concert halls around.
Serbian classical guitarist Petar Jankovic is one of the finest soloists on the scene today, and he posse’s a unique, artistic, and a highly expressive style. Recently Jankovic has broken new ground and pushed the limits for the classical guitar even further with his announcement of the Petar Jankovic Ensemble, which is a string quartet led by guitar.
Flavio Sala doesn’t hold back, in his playing or with his words. The multi-talented guitarist, who weaves his music between the classical guitar and world-music genres,
Everyone in his or her own way contributes to the guitar’s evolution.
Brian Hulse’s album Pseudosynthesis is a collection of original compositions for solo piano, guitar and violin duo, flute and piano duo, and small chamber ensemble. On this album there are moments of singing melody, flamenco rhythms, discontinuities, syncopated rhythms, virtuosity; borrowing both form the classical tradition and twentieth century, making this music some of the most interesting and fresh twenty-first century chamber music recently recorded.
Terruno, the latest recording by Paraguayan guitarist Berta Rojas is fresh, exciting, and truly an amazing recording. It contains some lesser known guitar music and transcriptions by South American composers Vincent Lindsey Clark, Quique Sinesi, and Egberto Gismonti.
Viaje en Espana, the latest recording by classical guitarist Martha Masters, is more than just another Spanish guitar album. Even after one listen, it is apparent that the sounds of Spain, and the repertoire made famous by Segovia, are in direct relation to the music on this recording. Even though most of the music in this collection was never performed by Segovia, it was all written and dedicated to him, allowing fans to experience the “other” Segovia repertoire for the first time.
Naquele Tempo is Roland Dyens’ incredible collection of solo classical guitar arrangements of works written by the Brazilian composer, Alfredo da Rocha Viana, Jr.(1897-1973), better known as Pixinguinha (pronounced, Pish-in-GUI-nia). Pixinguinha’s music was originally written for small jazz ensembles and is characteristically expressive, innovative, and rich with melody and complex harmonies. His pieces have an improvisational feeling to them and contain all the elements representative of an expert composer.
Aaron Shearer’s Classic Guitar Technique has been one of the most highly used and influential classical guitar method books for more that fifty years. Like many classical guitarists, I grew up learning from Shearer’s book and it’s the main pedagogical resource I now use in my private teaching studio. Alfred Music Publishing has recently introduced the third edition of Classic Guitar Technique, with the new edition being revised, updated, and re-edited by the maestro himself and one or his former students, Thomas Kitka.
As classical guitarists and guitar pedagogues, we have become used to lugging around a mountain of books with us everywhere we go. There is a book for scales, a book for arpeggios, a book for right hand technique and a book for the left.
