ISSUED: 13 April 2015
MEDIA CONTACT: Valerie Owens
SHEPHERDSTOWN, WV — Shepherd University is hosting its first-ever International Guitar Festival Thursday through Sunday, May 14-17. The festival is open to professional musicians and to college, high school, and middle school students.
The festival will feature concerts, lessons, and master classes with Manuel Barrueco. Other guest instructors include William Feasley, Marcelo Ferraris, and Jose Manuel Lezcano.
Manuel Barrueco has performed across the United States, been nominated for several Grammy awards, and received a Latin Grammy. He teaches at the Peabody Institute in Baltimore, Maryland, and has performed throughout the United States and internationally, including with the Boston Symphony, Baltimore Symphony, Helsinki Philharmonic in Finland, New Japan Philharmonic, and the radio symphonies of Munich and Frankfurt in Germany.
William Feasley, adjunct music professor, is director of Shepherd’s guitar program and was the first guitarist to be awarded the Peabody Conservatory’s Artist Diploma. He has since been the recipient of numerous prizes and awards, including a gold medal in the 1987 PanHellenic Guitar Competition in Athens, the 1990 and 1995 Baltimore Chamber Music Awards, and a 1996 Governor’s Citation for Outstanding Achievements in the Arts in Maryland. Feasley has performed worldwide and was selected to play for Andrés Segovia, known as the father of modern classical guitar, at the University of Southern California in 1986
Argentine guitarist and composer Marcelo Ferraris graduated from the Conservatorio Manuel de Falla in Buenos Aires. He has participated in international guitar festivals in the United States, Chile, Peru, Uruguay, Paraguay, and Bolivia and was awarded the Cantuta of gold in the 2006 International Guitar Festival in Tacna, Peru. Ferraris has released several CDs featuring his own compositions.
Cuban-born guitarist, composer, educator, and folklorist Jose Manuel Lezcano has earned numerous professional recognitions including the New Hampshire State Council on the Arts Individual Artist Fellowship, New Hampshire Music Teachers Association Composer of the Year, and a Fulbright Award to Ecuador where he performed as orchestral soloist and pursued research on indigenous guitar traditions. Lezcano premiered his second guitar concerto, “Concierto Cubanero,” in 2011 in New York City and in Quito, Ecuador.
College-level and professional musicians who sign up for the festival can apply to take master classes with Barrueco by submitting an unedited DVD recording of two contrasting works on solo guitar by April 15.
Registration costs $125 and includes admission to all master classes and concerts, an individual lesson with a guest artist, participation in guitar ensemble rehearsals, and performing in a concert on Sunday, May 17. The registration deadline is May 1.
Nightly concerts by guest artists as well as a culminating concert by the festival participants are free and open to the public. More information is available at www.shepherd.edu/musicweb/documents/GuitarFestival.pdf, or by contacting Dr. Robert Tudor, associate professor of music and music department chair, at 304-876-5237 or by email to rtudor@shepherd.edu.
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