Califone + Howard Fishman premiere scores to Buster Keaton silent films

Groundbreaking guitarists premiere original film scores for silent films by Buster Keaton.

Califone & Buster Keaton's Go West (1925)

Howard Fishman & Buster Keaton's The Frozen North (1922) 

The New York Guitar Festival’s 25th Anniversary begins with a typically eclectic event.  The duo ofMarc Ribot, the New York guitarist, andLeyla McCalla, the New Orleans cellist and banjo player, may seem unlikely at first.  Ribot is known for his work with Tom Waits, Elvis Costello, his own avant-noise trio Ceramic Dog, and much more; McCalla writes songs that draw on the African-American string band tradition, Cajun music, and her own Haitian heritage.  But Ribot was also a student of the Haitian classical guitarist/composer Frantz Casseus, and the two musicians share a strong genre-agnostic streak.  Joining them on this first of two nights celebrating a quarter century of the NYGF isYasmin Williams.  She has extended the “tapping” technique into a whole new way of approaching the guitar, and occasionally adds tap shoes and kalimba to the sound, becoming a literal one-woman band.  And the NYGF has long presented related instruments from around the world; for this event, it’s sitarist Neel Murgai, co-director of the globally-inspired Brooklyn Raga Massive, accompanied by Jeff The Brotherhood guitarist Kunal Prakash.

Medicine Singers is the name of an ongoing collaboration betweenYonatan Gat, the wildly virtuosic Israeli-born, New York-based guitarist, and theEastern Medicine Singers, an Eastern Algonquin powwow group from Rhode Island.  Now joined by the legendaryLee Ranaldoof Sonic Youth, Medicine Singers combine ancient trance and spirituality with modern psychedelia, and make inventive use of the similarities – and differences – between the steady pulse of Indigenous American drumming and the rhythms of rock.  Other special guests will includeLaraaji,Mamady Kouyaté MaalemandHassan BenJaafar.

The New York Guitar Festival returns to The Greene Space, WNYC’s ground floor performance venue, for an action-packed two-part series on Monday and Tuesday, June 12 and 13. For over twenty years, the NYGF has presented creative programs that feature some of the best-known guitar heroes of our time, as well as extraordinary talents that the festival’s producers, David Spelman and WNYC’s John Schaefer, have uncovered.

The New York Guitar Festival returns to The Greene Space, WNYC’s ground floor performance venue, for an action-packed two-part series on Monday and Tuesday, June 12 and 13. For over twenty years, the NYGF has presented creative programs that feature some of the best-known guitar heroes of our time, as well as extraordinary talents that the festival’s producers, David Spelman and WNYC’s John Schaefer, have uncovered.

The 2021 New York Guitar Festival (NYGF) pays tribute to the iconic classical guitarist Julian Bream with an online series of concerts beginning July 14. This year’s series “Remembering Julian Bream,” includes commissions by a group of stellar classical guitarists, lutenists and composers –including Pepe Romero, Sharon Isbin, Leo Brouwer and Laura Snowden - in honor of the Grammy Award-winning concert artist who died at his home in Wiltshire, England on August 14, 2020, at the age of 87.  In his New York Times obituary, Allan Kozinn wrote that Bream “pushed the guitar beyond its Spanish roots and expanded its range by commissioning dozens of works from major composers, and who also played a crucial role in reviving the lute as a modern concert instrument.”

The fourth and final night of the 2022 festival features the space-Americana and pastoral country stylings of guitarist, composer, and collaboratorWilliam Tyler. Also, there’s a fado-tinged set from bandleader, composer, and soloistMarta Pereira da Costa, the world’s first and only female professional player of the Portuguese Guitar (a double six-stringed, teardrop-shaped instrument traditionally played by men.) WNYC's John Schaefer hosts.

This third night features Brazilian polymathBadi Assad, who is a guitarist, yes, and…a singer, percussionist, keyboardist, and dancer. Also, on the third night, the possibly cosmic and definitely virtuosic shimmering fire of guitarist and composerVernon Reidtogether with multi-instrumentalistLaraaji, perhaps on zither. WNYC's John Schaefer hosts.

Join us for the second of four nights celebrating spectacular guitar talents features American jazz (and country, West African, classical, improvisatory) guitarist, composer, and bandleaderBill Frisell, together with bassist, guitarist, and pedal steel playerLuke Bergman. Also joining on night two is the guitarist and composerGyan Riley, whose talent also ranges and roams, spanning jazz, world music, new music, and post-minimalism. WNYC's John Schaefer hosts.

This is the first of four nights of a celebration of today’s most dazzling guitar talents and features Malian guitar virtuosoVieux Farka Touré, son of the legendary West African blues guitarist Ali Farka Touré and a leading figure on the global music scene. The series opens withGlenn Jones, an inventive, and evocative fingerpicking guitar player of the “American primitive” style. WNYC'S John Schaefer hosts.

AN ON-LINE PERFORMANCE SERIES EXPLORING THE MUSIC OF BLIND BLUES MUSICIAN, REV. GARY DAVIS. FEATURING: WARREN HAYNES, LARKIN POE, BILL FRISELL, FANTASTIC NEGRITO, ROSANNE CASH, AMYTHYST KIAH, JORMA KAUKONEN, DOM FLEMONS, LARRY CAMPBELL & TERESA WILLIAMS

For the New York Guitar Festival’s 20th Anniversary, the Festival and WNYC’s New Sounds combine forces once again, this time for a celebration of the music ofMemphis Minnie.

The 2019 edition of the New York Guitar Festival celebrates 20 years of live concerts, panels, and workshops that span the huge range of the guitar.  And it celebrates one of the instrument’s pivotal but overlooked figures:Memphis Minnie.  “Memphis Minnie was an incredible force during one of the most trying times for a black woman to be a performer in popular music in America,” says Amythyst Kiah, the singer/songwriter/guitarist who will be part of the tribute concert.  Minnie began her career in 1929, recording the song “When The Levee Breaks” with her husband Joe McCoy, known as Kansas Joe.  That song would go on to great fame when Led Zeppelin recorded it in 1971.  She was an early exponent of the Delta blues style – an urgent, passionate guitarist.  But she was also a formative influence on the electric blues sound associated with Chicago, and her career in the 1930s and 1940s – both solo and with her later husband, Lil Son Joe – produced hit songs like“Bumble Bee”and“Me and My Chauffeur Blues,” which have also gone on to long and productive musical lives.

For this concert presented by the New York Guitar Festival and WNYC’s New Sounds, Fabi Reyna acts as guest curator.  Reyna is not only a fearsome guitarist herself, she is also the founder/editor of She Shreds, “the world’s only print publication dedicated to women guitarists and bassists.”  The magazine’s stated goal “is to transcend boundaries like gender and genre—supporting radicalism, respect and revolution.” For this event, we’ll hear Fabi’s own group Savila, a kind of Latina power trio built on traditional cumbia and chicha rhythms.  Sterling Rhyne will present her ethereal guitar/vocal excursions into a post-folk, soul-inspired landscape. And Shana Cleveland takes the “American Primitive” tradition of fingerstyle guitar – a tradition associated almost exclusively with men, like the legendary John Fahey – and extends it into the 21st century.

New York Guitar Festival proudly welcomes back Sharon Isbin, whose performance last year was a major highlight of the 2017 Festival. This time, Isbin’s program will feature a combination of solos and duos with her guest, the Brazilian jazz guitarist Romero Lubambo. Isbin and Lubambo, who performed together in the award-winning documentary Sharon Isbin: Troubadour, share a lyrical sensibility that makes their duets a natural elision of improvisation, classical music, and cross-cultural exploration. A two-time Grammy winner and founder of the guitar department at Juilliard, Isbin has premiered works by Tan Dun, John Corigliano, and Christopher Rouse, among other composers, that were written especially for her. Isbin’s most recent recording, Alma Española, pairs her with the mezzo-soprano Isabel Leonard for a set of Spanish art songs by Montsalvatge, Agustín Lara, and Lorca. Hailed as much for her “mesmerizing finesse” as for the range of her repertoire, Isbin has recorded everything from Baroque and Renaissance to contemporary classical to Latin American traditions in Journey to the Amazon.

Known for the introspective lyricism of his classical guitar style as well as the exuberant spontaneity of his flamenco repertoire, Adam del Monte delights and moves audiences with his mastery of both art forms. In addition to performing iconic works by Albéniz and Tárrega, del Monte has composed two concertos for flamenco guitar and orchestra. His most recent recording, Asi lo siento yo, features collaborations with other flamenco musicians in songs that integrate aspects of tango, jazz, and Gypsy soul. Del Monte has also made music for the Los Angeles Guitar Quartet, Osvaldo Golijov, and film composer John Williams. Joining del Monte for his afternoon program will be the flamenco dancer and choreographer Sonia Olla (described by the New York Times as “a furnace of earthy sensuality”) and her partner, the Seville-born cantadore Ismael Fernández.

Triple threat Marija Temo does it all: she sings, dances, and fiercely plays flamenco guitar. Praised for her formidable chops, Temo plays a guitar specifically tailored to the nuances of both classical and flamenco; she co-designed this unique instrument with luthier Tom Rodriguez. Although immersed in flamenco tradition, Temo also plays pop crossover and solos with symphonies. Composer Loris Ohannes Chobanian wrote the Concierto del Fuego especially as a showcase for Temo’s individual synthesis of classical rigor and Spanish style. She performed in Fuego Ibérico, a flamenco musical inspired by cabaret. Currently, she serves as Guitar Chair at the Wisconsin Conservatory of Music. Temo received a Master’s degree from the Peabody Conservatory, where she studied with Manuel Barrueco. Her solo recital at this year’s NYGF marks her first appearance at the Festival since “Audible Cloisters” in 2016.

Classical guitar legend and Festival friend Pepe Romero returns to the NYGF for the first time since 2014. On that occasion, Romero gave an all-Bach recital. This time, the maestro will pay tribute to his father, Celedonio Romero, and the music of Spain, particularly that of his native Málaga. Romero will focus on flamenco guitar, bringing with him a to-be-announced roster of special guests, singers, and dancers. Among his celebrated accomplishments, Romero has premiered works – composed especially for him – by Rodrigo and Torroba. He’s recorded more than 60 albums across his career, 30 of which were as part of a quartet with his father and brothers in The Romeros, an ensemble widely regarded as “The Royal Family of the Guitar.” In addition to championing new works for the instrument, Romero has also rescued previously lost concerti by Giuliani and Carulli, among others, bringing them out of the archives and into the light.

Building on last year’s sold-out event, the New York Guitar Festival and WNYC’s New Sounds present a four-week series that features a diverse cast of guitar slingers performing newly commissioned works and special collaborations.  The festival will take over The Greene Space stage every Thursday evening, from May 18 to June 8, featuring multiple short sets and onstage interviews with New Sounds hostJohn Schaefer.

Building on last year’s sold-out event, the New York Guitar Festival and WNYC’s New Sounds present a four-week series that features a diverse cast of guitar slingers performing newly commissioned works and special collaborations.  The festival will take over The Greene Space stage every Thursday evening, from May 18 to June 8, featuring multiple short sets and onstage interviews with New Sounds hostJohn Schaefer.