BGFest XVII Programs Academy
The BGFest Academy program is designed for young guitarists (ages 15-30*) with a serious interest in the classical guitar. It includes private lessons, masterclasses, workshops, technique and performance classes, ensemble opportunities, as well as an optional competition and an opportunity to perform in the BGFest final concert at the Multicultural Arts Center.
REGISTRATION ENDED
*Younger participants may be admitted to the program by request. Please contact [email protected] for an audition.
*For European & Asian timezone participants, please refer to the International Academy program.
BGFest XVIII Academy Master Classes
BGFest XVIII offers master classes (live and/or Zoom) with international guest artists Sharon Isbin, Gohar Vardanyan, Jorge Caballero, and artistic director Eliot Fisk. All master classes will be recorded and saved for asynchronous viewing for a total of 30 days starting July 2nd. English / Chinese translation is available upon request.
Participants who wish to perform in BGFest masterclasses must submit a 5 – 10 minute audition video after completing registration, before the (extended) registration deadline.
BGFest XVIII Academy Private Lessons
BGFest XVIII Academy participants receive a total of three individual lessons (or two individual lessons and one masterclass). BGFest XVIII Academy faculty include: Jérôme Mouffe, Bruce Holzman, Adam Levin, Zaira Meneses, Scott Borg, and Lautaro Mantilla.
BGFest XVIII Academy GUITAR PERFORMANCE Competition
HOUSING RECOMMENDATION
Please contact MassArt for information on their summer housing for the moment.
Boston GuitarFest team is still working on a housing solution for our participants and we will be updating housing options in the future. If you wish to learn more about housing and transportation options this year, please reach out to [email protected] for more info.
Both The Foundry and Multicutural Arts Center are close to public transport. Lechmere (green line) or Kendall/MIT (red line) are within walking distance.
BGFest XVIII Academy Workshops & Lectures
Improvisation Workshop
on Improvisation
Dr. Lautaro Mantilla
Composer / Guitarist
Dr. Lautaro Mantilla
Composer / Guitarist
LAUTARO MANTILLA, DMA is a guitarist, composer, and improviser from Bogota, Colombia. In his performances, he typically combines guitar, extended vocalization techniques, and homebuilt electronics to create music that is both viscerally affecting and conceptually rigorous. Based in Boston, Lautaro is active in the NY and Boston music scenes and is a faculty member of the Contemporary Improvisation department at New England Conservatory.
Lautaro holds a Master's in guitar and improvisation and a Doctorate in Composition both from New England Conservatory in Boston.
Lecture
J.S. Bach Life and Works (online from Germany)
Christoph Wolff
Musicologist
Christoph Wolff
Musicologist
Wolff’s primary research interests extend to the music from the 17th to the early 19th centuries, especially to Bach and Mozart studies. Publications include Bach: Essays on His Life and Music (1991), Mozart’s Requiem (1994), The New Bach Reader (1998), Driven into Paradise: The Musical Migration from Nazi Germany to the United States (1999; ed. with R. Brinkmann), Music of My Future. The Schoenberg Quartets and Trio (2001; ed. with R. Brinkmann), The Organs of J. S. Bach: A Handbook (2012; with M. Zepf), and Mozart at the Gateway to His Fortune. Serving the Emperor, 1788–1791(2012). His book Johann Sebastian Bach: The Learned Musician (2000, updated 2013), which has been translated into eleven languages, received the 2001 Otto Kinkeldey Award of the American Musicological Society in recognition of the most distinguished book in musicology published during the previous year. His most recent book is Bach’s Musical Universe: The Composer and His Work (2020).
Professor Wolff taught at the University of Erlangen (1963–68), the University of Toronto (1968-70), Columbia (1970–76) and Princeton Universities (1973 and 1975) before joining the Harvard faculty in 1976. At Harvard he was Chair of the Department of Music (1980–88, 1990–91), Acting Director of the University Library (1991–92), Dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (1992–2000), and Curator of the Isham Memorial Library (1976–2012). He was on the Graduate Faculty of the Juilliard School (2010–2018) and served as President and Director of the Bach-Archiv Leipzig (2001–13) and President of the Répertoire International des Sources Musicales (2004–13). An elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, the Saxon Academy of Sciences at Leipzig, and the Akademie für Mozart-Forschung in Salzburg (which he chaired 1996–2006), he holds honorary professorships at the University of Freiburg and the National Music Academy ‘Mykola Lysenko’ in Lviv (Ukraine). A recipient of the Dent Medal of the International Musicological Society (1978) the Humboldt Research Prize (1996), the Bach Prize of the Royal Academy of Music (2006) and the Bach Medal of the City of Leipzig (2021), he holds honorary memberships in the American Musicological Society, the German and American Bach Societies, and the Mozarteum Foundation Salzburg; in 2015 he was elected to the Orden Pour le mérite für Wissenschaften und Künste. He currently serves on the Board of the Packard Humanities Institute, Los Altos, CA.
Baroque Workshops
Basso Continuo, Ornamentations, and Rhetoric in Baroque Perofrmance
Nigel North
Lutenist
Nigel North
Lutenist
British lutenist Nigel North has been sharing music with audiences for nearly 30 years. His quiet and gentle personality goes, literally, "hand in hand" with his choice of instrument; the lute is one of the most gentle, subtle yet technically demanding of "ancient" instruments. Through this medium, as soloist, accompanist and ensemble musician, Nigel has inspired appreciation from concert public and recording listeners with comments such as :
"North's playing has a freedom and expression rivaling the best jazz musicians"
"An amalgam of scholarship, respect, love and high instrumental ability."
"Lute plucked to perfection. . . perhaps he is the greatest performer of this instrument of all time"
"stunning - rich, warm, resonant and utterly musical"
Nigel North has also always adored teaching. Following many years of committed teaching in Europe (in London, Berlin and Den Haag) Nigel has since 1999 been Professor of Lute in the "Early Music Institute" at Indiana University, Bloomington, USA from where he continues his varied life as performer and teacher.