Thomas Viloteau
French guitar phenomenon Thomas Viloteau enjoys shaking things up. His approach to the instrument, its repertoire and its technique, has reshaped the term ‘classical’ guitar, into something new, alive and forward thinking.
At 25 he published a technique book ‘In the Black Box, Technique(s) of the Classical Guitar’ which has sold more than a thousand copies on his website alone. At 27 he decided to go back to school to complete both a Master’s and Doctoral degree. He is one of the very few players to have won both the Guitar Foundation of America and the Francisco Tàrrega competitions. In 2013 he won the Northern Trust/Piper Enrichment Award; which allowed him to commission the Suite Brasileira 3 from composer Sergio Assad. Viloteau is the only guitarist to ever win the Arthur Foote Award from the Harvard Musical Association in 2016. He has also been the Artist in Residence at the show Performance Today in 2017, broadcasting his playing to more than a million people across the USA. As an avid world traveller, Thomas Viloteau has lived in Barcelona, Paris, San Francisco, New York City, London, Tucson, Montreal and Rochester, NY. In 2019 he will join the guitar faculty at the Peabody Institute, Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.
Viloteau’s musical journey did not start in a typical way. At age 6, Thomas’ father handed him a violin and tried to teach him how to hold the bow. Faced with a total lack of interest, Viloteau immediately gave up. At 10 and 11, he taught himself the recorder and harmonica, but found himself with the same disinterest as the violin. It wasn’t until Viloteau was 12, that he chose the guitar. After seeing a pop musician play both the harmonica and guitar at the same time on television, he joined the local music school to try out an instrument untouched before. Holding a fret board for the first time, he instantly bonded with it. Reading through all the studies he could put his hands on with disconcerting ease, his first teacher had no choice but to see him twice a week right from the start.
From this moment on, things happened quickly. While pursuing his studies, both academically and musically, he sailed with his family from Provence to Barcelona and back to Paris. In less than eight years, he completed more than ten thousand hours of practicing on the guitar. Less than 10 years after starting the guitar, at the young age of 21, he flew to the USA and won first prize at the renown Guitar Foundation of America Competition. Then, just as suddenly as he started and perhaps due to an overdose of playing, he decided to put the guitar back in its case. After five silent months he realized how his instrument was a necessary part of his life, and he flew to Canada to record his first CD with Naxos before starting a 50 concert tour of North America. Now, after more than 10 years touring the world, a book, cds, international broadcasting and degrees, he is more passionate about it than ever.
There is nothing ‘classical’ about Thomas Viloteau, and he likes to mix up different types of music in his concerts and recordings. Whether it’s Brazilian, baroque or romantic music, to him, each piece is an excuse to turn into a different player. Viloteau adapts his technique to achieve a specific sound, phrasing or articulation to match the performance practices of any given repertoire. And when the instrument itself limits him, he will exchange it for an acoustic, baroque or romantic guitar…
Gaëlle Solal
Guitarist of extraordinary passion and virtuosity, Gaëlle Solal was born in Marseilles (France) and began the guitar at age 6 with René Bartoli. At 14, she won three gold medals at the Conservatoire de Marseilles and, as best student among all instrumentalists, was awarded the Prix de la Ville de Marseille. She was a First Prize winner at many competitions early in her career including the Alessandria, Locquémeau, Savona, and Sernancehle competitions, and a finalist at the Concert Artists Guild of New York.
Gaëlle, a classical guitar virtuosa, has performed in more than 35 countries around the world. She performed in the Festival d’Ile de France, Noches en los Reales Alcázares in Sevilla, Festival d’Avignon, Festival Montpellier-Radio France and at Salle Cortot (Paris), Zellerbach Hall (Berkeley), Tsuda Hall, Nikkei Hall, Oji Hall in Tokyo, Merkin Concert Hall (NY) and at the Guitar Foundation of America’s International Convention in 2011. As a soloist she appeared with the Berkeley Symphony, the Garde Républicaine Orchestra and the Philharmonic Turin Orchestra.
Gaëlle’s upcoming tours will take her to the USA, France, Italy, Bosnia, Germany, Morocco and Peru.
Gohar Vardanyan
Widely admired for her technique, artistry, and passionate performances Armenian guitarist Gohar Vardanyan has performed throughout the United States and internationally. She has performed for numerous guitar societies, universities, and arts organizations, including the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC, Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center, and guitar societies in Seattle, San Francisco, Houston, Miami, and New York City to name a few. She has appeared on National Public Radio in the United States and Radio Nacional in Argentina. Ms. Vardanyan has performed with the Juilliard Opera Center and as a soloist with the Great Lakes Chamber Orchestra and Panama National Symphony Orchestra. She has also been a guest artist at International Guitar Festivals in Sweden, Italy, Panama, Canada, and Mexico. She has been featured on the cover of Classical Guitar Magazine. Guitar International Magazine has described her as “the complete package,” “with a musicality and emotional quality . . . that one would expect from someone much older than the young wunderkind. Not only is she able to draw you into her performances with engaging musical interpretations, but she has the technical facility that is required of any concert level guitarist.” Her playing has been described as “passionate,” “evocative,” and “virtuosic.”
In addition to her performing career, Ms. Vardanyan is an avid teacher. She maintains a private studio in New York City and frequently teaches master classes and guitar technique workshops during her concert travels. Ms. Vardanyan is an author of four books from Mel Bay Publication and has an extensive list of instructional guitar videos on both her own and the Strings by Mail channels on YouTube.
Ms. Vardanyan began studying the guitar in her native Armenia at the age of five under the careful guidance of her father, Vardan Vardanyan. At the age of eight, she gave her first public performance and also appeared on Armenian National Television. She was the first prize winner in the Armenian National Music Contest “Amadeus” and was accepted into the prestigious group, “New Names,” for talented young musicians. She performed in numerous concert venues in Armenia, including Komitas Chamber Music Hall and the Small Philharmonic Hall. She went on to study with Antigoni Goni at the Pre-College Division of the Juilliard School. In 2001, Ms. Vardanyan studied with John Wunsch at the Interlochen Arts Academy. She was awarded the Young Artist’s Certificate from Interlochen Center for the Arts and the Harold Randolph Prize in performance from the Peabody Conservatory.
Ms. Vardanyan holds a Master of Music Degree from The Juilliard School where she studied with Sharon Isbin and a Bachelor of Music degree from the Peabody Conservatory of Music where she studied with Manuel Barrueco. She is also an alumna of the Aspen Music Festival and School.
Gohar Vardanyan is sponsored by Strings by Mail and plays on Royal Classics Recital strings.
Andrea Gonzales Caballero
Operaworld Magazine describes Andrea Gonzalez Caballero as “the female voice of the Spanish guitar”. Andrea is a laureate of multiple prestigious international guitar competitions, receiving First Prize and Special Prize at the “XL International Competition F. Sor” (Rome), and First Prize at the “XIII Alhambra International Guitar Competition” (Valencia), of which she was the youngest guitarist to receive first prize.
The BBC Music Magazine described her as one of today’s young rising stars of the classical guitar. Andrea has appeared at international festivals and concert series around the world. Recent highlights include performances at Palau de la Música in Barcelona, National Auditorium and Juan March Foundation in Madrid, as well as performances with Sinfonietta Ratingen and Neue Philharmonie Westfalen in Germany. Selected by the International Guitar Foundation of London to perform as a soloist in international music festivals such as the “London Guitar Festival”, she debuted in the UK offering concerts at venues like King’s Cross in London and Sage Gateshead in Newcastle.
Andrea’s 2017 Naxos CD, which contains the premiere of new guitar compositions and pieces by composers like B.Britten, Albébiz or Tárrega was received with great acclaim: “this album is a delicate, elegant and majestic musical word” (Golden Melomano distinction by Melomano Magazine).
Andrea has been supported by “Alexander von Humboldt Foundation”, “DAAD” (German Academic Exchange Service), “AIE” (Society of Performing Artists of Spain) and “Provincial Council of Guipuzcoa” to study at the Robert Schumann Musikhochschule in Düsseldorf (Germany), where she graduated with honors.
Colin Davin
Hailed as “the real thing, a player with a virtuoso’s technique, a deeply expressive musicianship, and a probing imagination” (American Record Guide) who “has the distinct ability to wring the depths of expressiveness from all that he plays” (Classical Guitar Magazine), and for his “precision, musical intelligence and passion” (Cleveland Classical), guitarist Colin Davin has emerged as one of today’s most dynamic young artists. Recent and upcoming highlights include concertos with the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra, Aiken Symphony Orchestra, New Mexico Philharmonic, Lake Placid Sinfonietta, Lakeside Symphony Orchestra, Champaign-Urbana Symphony Orchestra, and Richmond Symphony; collaborations with Sharon Isbin at the 92nd Street Y, Chautauqua Institution, and Baltimore Classical Guitar Society; and performances with violinist Tessa Lark and cellist Edward Arron
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In 2015, Colin appeared as a featured musical guest on the final season of The Late Show with David Letterman alongside the late Jessye Norman. He has performed across the world, including at Carnegie Hall, Alice Tully Hall, the Metropolitan Museum of Art (on historic instruments from the museum's collection), New York Philharmonic Ensembles, the ELLNORA Festival at the University of Illinois, the Alhambra Palace in Granada, Spain, the Paris Conservatoire, the Fridge Fringe in Dubai, and venues throughout the United States and Canada. His collaborators include GRAMMY Award winning soprano Estelí Gomez and Dallas Symphony Orchestra principal harpist Emily Levin. He has been a regular guest artist at the Aspen Music Festival, and has four times been a guest teacher at the Afghanistan National Institute of Music in Kabul, Afghanistan.
Colin’s solo recording, “The Infinite Fabric of Dreams” has been praised as “some of the finest interpretations I’ve heard...achingly beautiful...a thoughtful, perceptive interpretation, filled with details often missed” (American Record Guide) and "a first-rate disc...Davin knows the pieces deeply and delivers virtuosic and exciting performances...state of the art" (Soundboard Magazine).
An active player in the American contemporary music scene, he has performed with Talea Ensemble, Contemporaneous, Nu Deco Ensemble, Present Music, Axiom, Aspen Contemporary Ensemble, ensemblenewSRQ, and Mimesis Ensemble. Davin has premiered dozens of new works, and currently operates the Century Guitar Project, an initiative that promotes new repertoire for the guitar through commissioning, performance, and recording.
Colin Davin is co-head of the guitar department at the Cleveland Institute of Music, and previously served on the faculty of Baldwin Wallace Univeristy. In demand for his insights in masterclasses and lectures, he has been invited to teach in a guest capacity at institutions including The Juilliard School, Oberlin Conservatory, University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, Arizona State University, and the Aspen Music Festival and School. He holds numerous prizes in international competitions, and was a two-time finalist in the Guitar Foundation of America International Concert Artist Competition. He holds a Master of Music from The Juilliard School, where he studied with Sharon Isbin; a Bachelor of Music from the University of Southern California with William Kanengiser; and preparatory studies at the Cleveland Institute of Music with Jason Vieaux.
Colin Davin performs on a 2007 Andrea Tacchi “Coclea Thucea” guitar, and endorses Augustine Strings.
Steve Cowan
Canadian guitarist Steve Cowan has performed and taught extensively throughout Canada, the United States, and Europe. His critically acclaimed debut album, Pour guitare, features exclusively Canadian music and has helped to establish him as “one of Canada’s top contemporary classical guitarists” (Classical Guitar Magazine). He has commissioned several new works for guitar and given world premieres in major cities such as Paris, Toronto, and New York. 2018-2019 was a milestone season for Steve, including his concerto debut with Ensemble del Arte in Germany, his New York solo recital debut, and the release of a new album, “Arctic Sonata”, with the EMEC discos label in Madrid.
An active chamber musician, Steve performs regularly with Forestare, a Montréal-based string ensemble. In 2020, he will be a Chamber Music New Zealand touring artist with flutist Hannah Darroch, as well as a Prairie Debut touring artist with guitarist Adam Cicchillitti. At the inaugural 21st Century Guitar Conference in Ottawa, Steve and Adam commissioned and premiered 9 new electroacoustic works by the New York-based composer collective, ICEBERG New Music. The duo will also release an album of Canadian guitar duets, titled FOCUS, on the Analekta label in October 2019.
Steve has won awards at 9 major national and international performance competitions, 7 of which are first prizes. A distinguished teacher, he has given public masterclasses at the University of Victoria, McMaster University, Conservatorium van Amsterdam, the Royal Danish Academy of Music, and more. Originally from St. John’s, Newfoundland, Steve holds degrees from Memorial University, the Manhattan School of Music, and McGill University. His former teachers include Sylvie Proulx, David Leisner, and Jérôme Ducharme. As of 2019, Steve is on faculty as a guitar instructor at Schulich School of Music of McGill University in Montréal.
Steve plays on guitars by Bruno Boutin.
Thu Le
Thu Le is an International award-winning classical guitarist and one of the world’s leading female proponents of her art. The Hanoi born guitarist is currently living in Bahrain. She brings to her mesmerizing performances a unique blend of passion, colour and personality which perfectly compliment her undoubted musicality and technical prowess.
Her love affair with the guitar began at the age of four thanks to her father, Le Hanh. At the age of five she gave her first public performance in Vietnam under his tutorship.
Thereafter her relationship with her guitar blossomed and her journey continued at a relentless pace. She passed the entrance examination for the National Conservatory of Music, Hanoi at the age of only seven, making her the youngest ever student to be admitted to this prestigious establishment. Her teachers included Nguyen Hai Thoai, Vu Bao Lam, Nguyen Nhu Dung and Nguyen Quoc Vuong.
To further enhance and develop her talent, she took master classes with world-renowned guitarists such as Manuel Barrueco, Nikita Koshkin, Hubert Kaeppel, Pavel Steidle, Thomas Offermann, Denis Azabagic, Judicael Perroy.
Thu Le’s passion for guitar has seen her perform in many countries, like Italy, France, England, Austria, Germany, Spain, Bulgaria, Romania, Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, India, Nepal, Turkey, USA, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, etc.
In 2018 she was selected to perform and hold master classes at the prestigious Guitar Federation of America convention held in Louisville, USA. Thu Le is a jury member and gives masterclasses and performances at many international guitar competitions and festivals.
Besides her solo career, she also collaborates and performs with orchestras, string quartets, vocalists, violinists, and flutists.
Currently, Thu Le is also performing internationally in a guitar duo with Italian guitarist Lorenzo Bernardi.
Jaxon Williams
Hailed as a “Rising Star in the Guitar World” (Corvallis Arts Review), Jaxon Williams is an acclaimed classical guitarist and pedagogue. He has won prize in various international competitions, including the OSAA Classical Guitar Competition, Sierra Nevada International Classical Guitar Competition, San Francisco Classical Guitar Competition, Pacific Guitar Competition, and Beverly Hills National Auditions. Jaxon is praised as “a player of rare power and grace” (William Kanengiser, GRAMMY award-winning LAGQ), having “a refined musicianship, solid technique, and an engaging stage presence” (Frank Koonce, guitar scholar and publisher), and is a sought after performer of the classical guitar. He is also a former Fulbright scholar, having studied in Spain, where he mastered the Spanish guitar repertoire and learned Flamenco guitar with maestros Paco Cortés and Adam del Monte.
Currently based in Los Angeles, CA, Jaxon serves as California Regional Director for the non-profit Lead Guitar (www.leadguitar.org), where he implements classical guitar programs in low-income schools, trains new teachers, and supervises existing programs. An innovator at heart, Jaxon is also working with Lead Guitar to pilot and develop an online learning program to be able to reach rural schools with less access to top quality guitar instruction.
In addition to his work as a solo artist, Jaxon collaborates frequently with ensembles. He is one half of the duo Jâca (www.jacamusic.com) with clarinetist Wesley Ferreira. The duo has been called “WAY too much fun for Classical music” (Cris Inguanti, former assistant principal clarinetist, Vancouver Symphony Orchestra) and actively performs on the concert stage worldwide and also gives masterclasses and lectures at Universities around the USA. Jaxon has also performed extensively with soprano and voice educator Laurel Irene (www.laurelirenesings.com), and together they work to take new classical music to the concert stage.
Jaxon has produced three solo guitar albums featuring music from the full spectrum of Classical guitar repertoire, and has appeared as a featured musician on clarinetist Wesley Ferreira’s album Arrival (Centaur Records).
Jaxon received his Master’s in Guitar performance from Arizona State University and is completing his Doctorate in Guitar Performance from the University of Southern California, where he also was awarded a graduate Teaching Assistantship. Jaxon plays a guitar built by luthier Paulino Bernabé of Madrid, Spain.
Visit https://www.jaxonwilliamsmusic.com for more information.
Bokyung Byun
Praised by Classical Guitar Magazine as “confident and quite extraordinary,” Korean guitarist, Bokyung Byun enjoys a reputation as one of the most sought-after guitarists of her generation. Ms. Byun holds the distinction of being the first female winner of the prestigious JoAnn Falletta International Guitar Concerto Competition, where Falletta herself described Ms. Byun’s performance as "stunning, showcasing her gorgeous tone, immaculate technique, and sophisticated musicianship. She is a winner in every sense of the word.” This win is among many wherein Ms. Byun excelled in the competitive circuit, including first-prize finishes at the Frances Walton Competition, the Montreal International Classical Guitar Competition, and the Philadelphia Classical Guitar Competition. In 2016, she was named the recipient of the International Artist Fellowship awarded to outstanding artists by the University of Southern California.
A bevy of orchestras, festivals, workshops, and guitar societies look to Ms. Byun for solo performances and masterclasses. In recent seasons, Ms. Byun has performed as a soloist with orchestras, including the Buffalo Philharmonic, the Utah Symphony, West Los Angeles Symphony, New Juilliard Ensemble, the Aspen Music Festival Orchestra, among others. Her solo recital highlights include performances at the Kumho Young Artist Series, Philadelphia Guitar Festival, Aspen-Salida Concert Series, Toronto Guitar Weekend, Guitar Montréal, Ellnora | The Guitar Festival, and San Diego Guitar Festival. She was acclaimed for performing “eloquently through a diverse and challenging program,” by Michelle Fratus, president of the board of the Knoxville Guitar Society, and having “confidence, passion, excellent projection and great dynamic contrast” by Heather Morand Clark, president of the Guitar Society of Toronto.
Committed to expanding the role of a 21st century musician, Ms. Byun’s concert program often features contemporary music alongside traditional repertoire. As Ms. Byun herself says, “it’s vital and exciting to audiences for concerts to join the new with the old. For guitar music to continue to grow, I believe that new works must actively be cultivated in programming, and it is my hope that audiences leave my performances with new experiences.” This skill at navigating both classic repertoire and fresh work has led her to co-found Sounding Board: The New Music Initiative for Guitarists and Composers. The project focuses on promoting collaborative relationships between composers and performers to create new works for guitar, and its inaugural festival in Besançon, France in 2019 has been praised as “extraordinary, in the strict sense of the word,” by La Presse de Gray in France.
Born in Seoul, Korea, Ms. Byun began playing guitar at the age of six. At eleven, she took the stage for her first solo recital, leading to an early start in her teen years performing numerous concert tours around Korea, to enthusiastic response, including millions of views on YouTube. By her teen years, she had gained national attention for first-prize finishes in three renowned competitions: the Korea Guitar Association, the Music Association of Korea, and the Guitar Foundation of America International Youth Competition.
Ms. Byun soon moved to the United States, where she briefly studied in Los Angeles before moving to New York City, where she entered The Juilliard School at the age of sixteen. She is now pursuing a fully-funded doctoral degree at the University of Southern California, and holds Bachelor of Music and Master of Music degrees from The Juilliard School. She is grateful to the masterful instruction of her pedagogues, who include Tae-soo Kim, Chen Zhi, William Kanengiser, Sharon Isbin, and Scott Tennant.
Henry Johnston
Henry Johnston, born in 1997, began studying guitar at the age of 6 with his father, Alan Johnston.
In 2009 he won second place in the Guitar Foundation of America's International Guitar Competition, in the junior division. In April of
2011, Henry performed at the Fitzgerald Theatre in his hometown of St. Paul, Minnesota as one of five winners of MN Varsity, Minnesota Public Radio's 1st annual competition for young classical singers and instrumentalists. Later that same month, Henry became the youngest guitarist ever to win first prize in the Schubert Club Competition in St. Paul, at the age of 14.
In 2013, Henry was a finalist in the senior division of the Guitar Foundation of America International Competition in Louisville, KY and in September of that year, he appeared on NPR’s “From the Top,” broadcast from the National Music Museum in Vermillion, SD.
In October of 2016, he won first prize in the Texas A&M International Guitar Competition. In April of 2018, he was selected by the University of Texas System Board of Regents as a recipient of the Regents’ Outstanding Student Awards in Arts and Humanities.
Henry’s past teachers include Alan Johnston, John Holmquist, Judicael Perroy and Adam Holzman. He received his B.M. from the University of Texas at Austin in the spring of 2020. He is currently pursuing his M.M. at The Juilliard School, studying under Maestra Sharon Isbin.
Adam Cicchillitti
There were several media accolades in 2017 for Montreal-born guitarist Adam Cicchillitti. The renowned American magazine Classical Guitar called him “a superb Canadian guitarist” and CBC Music included him on its list of Canada’s top thirty most promising young musicians in classical music, describing him as an “ardent ambassador for classical guitar.” His debut album Canciones, which was financed by the Canada Council for the Arts and MusicAction, was released in early 2018 under the Analekta label. The CBC music flagship classical music program In Concert mentioned that "every note stands out, like the brilliant distinct colours of a masterpiece by Pablo Picasso" when describing Adam’s debut album.
Known as one of the most promising guitarists of his generation, Cicchillitti is an active performer, composer, teacher and arranger. His compositions and arrangements are published by renowned editor les Productions d’Oz. In 2016, he toured Eastern Canada with Jeunesses Musicales and baritone Philippe Courchesne-Leboeuf, showcasing his arrangements of German and Spanish song cycles for the intimate duo of voice and guitar. He has been a featured soloist at Angèle Dubeau’s Fête de la musique, Canada’s premier guitar festival Guitare Alla Grande, Place-des-Arts and Salle J.-Antonio Thompson. His critically-acclaimed video-recordings for Radio-Canada, featuring his arrangements of Schubert songs with Philippe Sly, have reached hundreds of thousands of people internationally through social media.
Adam is currently completing a doctorate in music performance at McGill University, studying with celebrated guitarist Jérôme Ducharme. Finalist, semifinalist and multiple prize-winner in several national and international competitions, Adam will tour with acclaimed guitarist Steve Cowan and Debut Atlantic in 2018. The duo will release a second album with Analekta, celebrating the music for two guitars by renowned Canadian composers, in October 2019. Adam is the founder of the guitar program at Ottawa Suzuki Strings and is a specialist in child pedagogy.
Alexandra Iranfar
Alexandra Iranfar is a San Francisco- based classical guitarist and soprano—who performs in solo and collaborative projects. She has been acclaimed as a "song stylist" by the San Francisco Examiner. Her most recent project brought her to Berlin, Germany where she filmed a music video for Open Strings Berlin who presents young upcoming artists. She is a founding member of SopraDuo, a performing chamber group, and has released two albums, one of which features all new music written for her duo by composers from the Guerrilla Composers Guild. In 2016, Sèrgio Assad wrote SopraDuo a piece for two-guitars and voice entitled "Variations on a Lullaby." Alexandra has commissioned over a dozen pieces for her unique abilities as both soprano and guitarist, including by GRAMMY- award winning composer, Christopher Tin.
Alexandra earned a Master of Music and Professional Studies Diploma in Guitar Performance from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, where she studied with Grammy Award-winning artist Sérgio Assad. She was awarded guitar department honors and was a finalist at the 2013 San Francisco Conservatory of Music Concerto Competition. During her time at SFCM, Alexandra served as the Graduate Assistant to the guitar department, and chair David Tanenbaum. She received her Bachelor of Music degree in Guitar Performance from the Peabody Conservatory of Music of the Johns Hopkins University, where she studied with renowned pedagogue Julian Gray. While at Peabody, Alexandra double majored in classical guitar and classical voice. She was the only student in the Peabody Conservatory's 157 year history to do so . She was featured on the opera stage in Giuseppe Verdi's La Traviata, Leoš Janáček's The Cunning Little Vixen, and W.A Mozart's The Magic Flute. She also premiered the one-act opera Generations, by rising star Emily Koh, to the critical acclaim of the Baltimore Sun.
Alexandra is on faculty at the California Conservatory of Music where she maintains a private Suzuki Method studio and teaches the award winning advanced ensemble. She is Co-Artistic Director of the vibrant Peninsula Guitar Series, a guitar series and non-profit organization who serves the community through concerts and outreach. Alexandra enjoys cooking vegan cuisine, the smell of hyacinths, travel, being near the sea, and a dark roast cup of coffee.
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Evan Taucher
American classical guitarist Evan Taucher is making a statement in the classical guitar world by establishing himself as both a performer and a presence onstage and online.
Taucher has enjoyed performing concerts across the United States and Europe, most recently performing and teaching in the 2019 at GuitarSarasota’s Concert Series, Grand Rapids International Artist Series, Madison Classical Guitar Series, as well as performing at the famous Palacio del Portalet in Alicante, Spain as well as at the Florida State University campus in Valencia, Spain.
Most recently, Taucher was chosen as one of six in the world to perform and study with the prolific Cuban composer Leo Brouwer in Banff, Canada. At the beginning of 2019, Taucher was chosen among all North American applicants as the 2019 Magellan Scholar to study in Spain with the classical guitar’s foremost luminaries.
During his two years of study with Cuban virtuoso Rene Izquierdo, Taucher won 8 separate prizes in professional competitions throughout the United States including 3 Grand Prizes. Taucher was also the first guitarist to enter the University of Texas at Austin’s Artist Diploma program, where he currently studies with Adam Holzman.
Taucher holds a Bachelor of Music from Florida State University where he studied with Bruce Holzman, as well as a two Masters’ degrees – one from the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee with Rene Izquierdo, and the other from the University of Alicante in Spain.
Taucher is passionate about sharing music on stages around the world, as well as connecting the vast guitar community through social media – namely Instagram and YouTube. Taucher has online courses available through online course giants JamPlay as well as PickupMusic and has recently been featured in Guitar Player Magazine, ClassicFM, and Tonebase.
Taucher is a D’Addario Artist and performs on a 2019 Steven Walter guitar.