Today was a very active day for the festival, the first round of the Antonio Marin Guitar-making competition and the concert by students of Summer Arts who have been here for three weeks studying guitar with some great teachers. Here are the guitar-makers who were selected to continue tomorrow in the second round of trials:

Yulong Guo – China
William Gonzalez – Estados Unidos
Rafael Fuentes – España
Samuel Perez – España
Hans van Velzen – Holanda
Gaoyi – China
Mijail (Michael) Kharash – Rusia
Valerio Licari – Italia
Hironori Fukuda – Japon
Yan lei- China
Fernando Moreno – España
Francisco Alba – España
Donatella Salvato – Italia

Once again I am pleased with the showing by Granada makers; Francisco Muñoz Alba is from Granada, Mijail Kharash and Valerio Licari have been living and working in Granada for many years now.

Alexei Khorev demonstrating the guitars.

The true stars of the show.

Participants and jury.

The streets were full of young guitar-makers this evening. The participants in this year’s competition are here in Granada and meeting with David Collet throughout the day one on one. The jury’s examinations of the guitars and the sound tests will start tomorrow at 10am. I have had quite a few of the participants pass through my shop to say hello and to show me their guitars. The level this year looks good so far and it is always a pleasure to meet people who are truly in love with the guitar; who dream only of building instruments that will sound in the hands of the best musicians. The list of participants has not been published but there are entries from China, Japan, France, USA, Mexico, Holland, Italy, perhaps a majority from Spain and four of those from Granada. Hopefully tomorrow I can share the names of the participants.

It was an absolute pleasure to meet the members of the Los Angeles Guitar Quartet: Bill Kanengiser, John Dearman, Matt Greif and Scott Tennant last night. It was their first concert in Granada ever and Bill expressed their satisfaction at finally making it here. This is why we need CSU Summer Arts and the Guitar Festival in Granada. As usual, guitarists, guitar-makers, organisers, students and assorted family members traipsed off to the nearest open-air restaurant for refreshment in the mercifully cooler evening after the concert. Bill had plenty of questions about the Alhambra which he was visiting the next day and as always I found myself wishing for a bit more knowledge about it.

Bach, Bizet, Debussy, Hand, and various Spanish and English renaissance composers made for an eclectic and thoroughly enjoyable concert. In addition to the pieces on the programme they played two movements from Metheny’s Road to the Sun, a wonderful piece written just for them. Most of the arrangements seemed to be the work of either Bill or Scott. The guitars all seemed to do what was asked of them in the relatively large hall along with some discreet miking. My only complaint of the evening was the thing that Bill plays, although it has huge volume, it doesn’t sound like a guitar at all.