Zaira Meneses

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Min Zhenqi

Min Zhenqi is guitar faculty of Shanghai Conservatory of Music, director of Shanghai Guitar Professional Committee affiliated to Shanghai Musician Association, executive director of Shanghai Guitar Festival, and contributing editor of Shanghai Music Publishing House.

Mr. Min graduated from Shanghai Conservatory of Music, and studied with guitar virtuoso Eliot Fisk at New England Conservatory where he graduated with Academic Honor and Beneficent Society Scholarship.

In contemporary music, Zhenqi premiered guitar concerto Symphonic Variations • Silk
2 Road, by Xu Mengdong, and performed Vacuité/Consistence by Xu Shuya, Poeme Lyrique II by Chen Qigang, and some other modern pieces.

Regularly, Mr. Min plays with Shanghai Conservatory Sinfonietta, Shanghai Opera House Orchestra, and Shanghai Philharmonic Orchestra, and collaborated with Antonio Pirolli, Lawrence Foster, Tim Murray, Shin-ik Hahm, Alessandro Crudele, Zhang Guoyong, Tang Muhai, Lin Yousheng, Ye Cong, Zhang Chengjie, and some other conductors. He featured in many orchestral works such as Winterreise, Das Lied von der Erde, Mysteries of the Macabre, Blue Planet, The Last Mission of Marco Polo, Jazz Suite No.2, Falstaff, and G’schichten aus dem Wienerwald.

Zhenqi is author of The Popular Guitar Music, Melodic Guitar Pieces 111, Classical Guitar Graded Examination Anthology, Acoustic Guitar Graded Examination Anthology, and is translator of Complete Giuliani Studies.

Kostas Tosidis

Kostas Tosidis is a classical guitarist, performer specialized in contemporary music and a pedagogue in three different institutions (Mozarteum University Salzburg Austria - Assist. of Univ. Prf. Eliot Fisk), Koninklijk Conservatorium Brussels, Belgium, - Chamber Music Coach, Conservatorio Superior de Musica de Extremadura, Spain).

He completed his musical studies at the Agios Pavlos Conservatory in Thessaloniki, in Gianni’s Papakrasas class with the highest grade and first prize.

in 2006 he graduated with distinction and honor from Mozarteum University Salzburg, Austria. During his bachelor degree he was part of Eliot Fisk and Ricardo Gallen’s class. In 2009 Kostas Tosidis obtained his master’s degree with distinction and honor from the same institution, and he became Eliot Fisk’s assistant at the Mozarteum University.

Tosidis won several international prizes with the Miscelanea Guitar Quartet and as soloist. His solo projects include concerts( throught Europe &USA), and he has recorded 5 CDs with solo and chamber music repertory. His latest CD, with all 5 sonatas by Atanas Ourkouzounov, is gonna be released by Naxos Records.

Kostas Tosidis was one of the founding members of the renowned Miscelanea Guitar Quartet. Their aim was to create a unique interpretation of original composition for a guitar quartet.

Since September 2016 Tosidis has been a PhD andidate in the Royal Conservatory of Brussels. His topic of research explores the possibilities of playing arrangements of contemporary pieces for cello, violin and viola on the guitar without loosing the music’s intention or style. Part of that is his arrangement on the monumental work by G.Ligeti ‘cello solo sonata’, published by Schott Edition. His doctoral research includes commissioned works by composers such as Atanas Ourkouzounov, Marios Joannou Elias, Feliu Gasull, Marco Dottlinger, Giannis Papakrasas and Yorgos Nousis.

Kostas Tosidis plays a guitar by Alector Guitars, uses Knobloch strings and a guitar rest by Guitarlift.

Eliot Fisk

Guitarist Eliot Fisk is known worldwide as a charismatic performer famed for his adventurous and virtuosic repertoire. He is also celebrated for his willingness to take art music into unusual venues (schools, senior centers, and even logging camps and prisons!). After nearly 50 years before the public he remains as his mentor Andres Segovia once wrote, "at the top line of our artistic world."

In the 2017-18 season Fisk continues to break new ground for the guitar with marathon performances of his transcriptions of all 6 Bach solo cello Suites, duo performances with guitar legend Angel Romero and with a new trio formed with virtuoso guitarists Joaquin Clerch and Aniello Desiderio.

The long awaited release of Robert Beaser’s monumental guitar Concerto (dedicated to Eliot Fisk) on LINN records in 2017 elicited rave reviews online and in print. In the spring of 2017, Eliot Fisk premiered Son Dementes Cuerdas with the famed Arditti String Quartet with performances on two continents culminating in a performance at Wigmore Hall in London in a concert also featuring the Sequenza XI for solo guitar composed for and dedicated to Eliot Fisk by Luciano Berio.

Eliot Fisk has performed as soloist with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Houston Symphony, Rochester Symphony, Orchestra of St. Lukes, Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra, Pro Arte Orchestra, American Composers Orchestra, Boston Modern Orchestra Project (BMOP) and many others. He returns regularly to major concert series such as Stanford Lively Arts, Spivey Hall (Atlanta), Duke University Performances, Newman Center for the Performing Arts in Denver; Lincoln Center, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the 92nd Street Y in NYC, Da Camera Society of Houston, Da Camera Society of Los Angeles, San Francisco Chamber Music; Segovia Series at Pick-Staiger Hall at Northwestern University; Jordan Hall, Boston; Orange County Performing Arts Center; Brahms, Mozart and Schubert Saal (Vienna); Mozarteum Grosser Saal (Salzburg); Wigmore Hall and Queen Elizabeth Hall (London) and at numerous guitar festivals such as those of Cordoba, Spain; Belgrade, Serbia; and Iserlohn, Bad Aibling and Hersbrueck, Germany.

Eliot Fisk has performed with a dizzying array of chamber music colleagues including flutist,Paula Robison; clarinetist, Richard Stoltzman; cellist Yehuda Hanani; violinists Ruggiero Ricci, Gidon Kremer and Joshua Bell, the Shanghai, Juilliard, Miro, Borromeo and Arditti String Quartets.

He has invented numerous cross over projects with among others Paco Peña (flamenco guitar); Joe Pass and Bill Frisell (jazz guitar) chanteuse, Ute Lemper and Turkish music specialist, Burhan Öçal.

The repertoire of the classical guitar has been transformed through Fisk’s innumerable transcriptions (including works by Bach, Scarlatti, Haydn, Mozart, Paganini, Schubert, Mendelssohn, Granados, Albeniz and many others). In addition, numerous new works have been dedicated to him by composers as varied as Leonardo Balada, Robert Beaser, Luciano Berio, Ralf Gawlick, Nicholas Maw, George Rochberg, Daniel Bernard Roumain and Kurt Schwertsik.

Eliot Fisk remains a prolific recording artist. Recent releases include Ralf Gawlick’s Kollwitz Konnex for soprano and guitar (Musica Omnia) Anthony Paul de Ritis’s Pop Concerto with Gil Rose leading the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, a pair of CDs of new music dedicated to and transcribed by Fisk of works by Beaser, Corigliano, Schwertsik, and Rochberg (Wildner Records) and duo discs with flamenco legend, Paco Peña (on Nimbus Records) and cellist, Yehuda Hanani (Albany Records).

Eliot Fisk was the last direct pupil of Andres Segovia and also studied interpretation with the legendary harpsichordist Ralph Kirkpatrick at Yale University, from which he graduated “summa cum laude” in 1976, and where, directly following his own graduation in 1977, he founded the guitar department at the Yale School of Music.

Described by one New York Times headline as a “Fiery Missionary to the Unconverted”, Eliot Fisk is Professor at the Universität Mozarteum in Salzburg, Austria, where he teaches in 5 languages, and in Boston at the New England Conservatory where in 2010 he received the Krasner Award as “Teacher of the Year.”

In June 2006, King Juan Carlos of Spain, awarded Eliot the “Cruz de Isabel la Católica” for his service to the cause of Spanish music. Earlier recipients of this honor have included Andres Segovia and Yehudi Menuhin.

Eliot Fisk is Founder and Artistic Director of Boston GuitarFest (www.bostonguitarfest.org) an annual cross-disciplinary event co- sponsored by the New England Conservatory and Northeastern University and now entering its 13th consecutive year. In 2017 he created and served as Artistic Director of the first ever and immensely successful Salzburg Guitar Fest at the Universität Mozarteum in Salzburg.

In summer of 2014 he toured China performing with his wife, classical guitarist, Zaira Meneses, and the couple’s young daughter, pianist, Raquel Fisk.

Danilo Cabaluz

He has obtained his Bachelor degree in the class of Luis Orlandini, in the arts department of Universidad de Chile, master degree and postgraduate in the class of Eliot Fisk in the Universität Mozarteum Salzburg. He was rated both the highest qualification and the maximum recognition. He has taken part of several master classes with Eduardo Isaac, Eduardo Fernández, Marco Socias, Ricardo Gallén and Leo Brouwer.
He has participated in the International Guitar Festival of Santiago “Entre Cuerdas”, Boston Guitar Festival (EEUU), Salzburg Guitar Fest (Austria), IX Seminar of Musical Interpretation (Mar de Plata – Argentina), XV Semanas Musicales de Frutillar (Chile), International Festival of Contemporary Music (Chile), 1er. International Guitar Seminar of Santiago (Chile). Official concert seasons of USACH orchestra (Chile), Guitar Festival of Lausanne (Suiza), Salzburg International Chamber Music (Austria), Passauer Guitar Festival (Germany), between others. He was a member of Barroco Andino und Ensamble de guitarras de Chile. Together with different groups and as a soloist he has performed in the most important concert halls of Chile and other countries such as Colombia, Ecuador, Argentina, Brazil, USA, Holland, Germany, Spain, Italy, Austria and Switzerland.
He has performed several times as a soloist and as a part of the guitar quartet together with the Orchestra of Santiago´s University (USACH). Antofagasta symphony orchestra and Camerata de la Universidad de los Andes by the guidance of Santiago Meza, Aliosha Solovera, Christian Baeza y Eduardo Brown.
His recordings include one compact disc with the Ensamble de Guitarras de Chile (2010), live recording for the Austrian radio ORF with the violinist Florian Willeitner (2014), disc of the Duo CellAr, titled “La vida breve”, with the german cellist Julia Willeitner (2015) and the first solo CD “Ritmos Sudamericanos para Guitarra vol. 1”, with folk music from Southamerica (2018).
Between his recognitions we can count the scholarship “Amigos del Teatro Municipal”, “Beca Chile” (Government scholarship for master study in foreign countries), first prize in the 7th edition of the national guitar competition Liliana Pérez Corey, third place in the VI International guitar competition Compensar 2008 (Bogotá – Colombia) and in the international guitar competition Llerena 2010, Spain.
He currently has an important activity as a concert performer in Chile and Europe.

Cecilio Perera

Cecilio Perera was born in Mérida, Yucatán, México, in 1983. He began playing the guitar at an early age under the tutelage of his brother Pedro Perera, later on, he studied at the José Jacinto Cuevas school of music in his hometown, under the tutelage of Ricardo Vega, as well as taking some music lessons with pianist Alberto Álvarez.

From 1999 to 2005 he studied at the Faculty of Music of the Universidad Veracruzana in Xalapa, Veracruz, under the tutelage of Alfredo Sánchez and Consuelo Bolio. 

Graduated with the highest honours in bachelor and master degree at the Mozarteum University in Salzburg, Austria, under the tutelage of Eliot Fisk and Ricardo Gallén, where he also studied early music with Hans Brüderl and contemporary music with Simone Fontanelli. 

He currently teaches guitar as an assistant of Eliot Fisk at the Mozarteum University of Salzburg, Austria and also as a guitar teacher at the School of Music in Freilassing, Germany. 

Antigoni Baxe

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