“Making my own list, I found you can find a hundred other great or profoundly influential guitarists without breaking a sweat.”  –Tim Brookes

It’s 2016. I’m at Heathrow right now, flying back to South Africa having enjoyed my fourth visit to New York in just three years. But, this visit was very different.

This past weekend, I played two of the most spectacular venues in the world within the span of 24 hours.  It all started in London, on Friday night.  I’d been on tour as the support act for my favorite punk rock icon, Iggy Pop.  London was my last date on the tour and our show that evening was at the legendary Royal Albert Hall.

This is the 6th year of the Alternative Guitar Summit, but it still feels brand new. There seem to be brilliant guitarists everywhere that are finding new roads into our imaginations.

South African guitarist Derek Gripper is the kind of musician who makes painstakingly difficult technique sound like the product of effortless musicianship and adventurous curiosity. Though he trained a classical violinist, he is perhaps best known for transcribing music played on the 21-stringkorainstrument from West Africa and arranging it for guitar. Last year, he presented aTEDx talkabout his work and we strongly encourage you to check it out. This week, we chatted with Derek about his journey from violins to guitar, sojourn full of detours to places like India and Mali and composers like Bach and Toumani Diabaté.

Listening to music can be an emotional experience that stirs you to sadness, joy or exhilaration. Music can also take you on a stimulating intellectual journey that has you appreciating form, structure, history and cultural idioms. However, music is perhaps most magical when it is both emotionally engaging and intellectually provocative. Dom Flemons’s brand ofold-timey folk musicfalls into this more magical realm.

For most, Valerie June’s success to date seems meteoric. This Southern gal from Jackson, Tennessee has already wowed British audiences on the legendary music show “Later… with Jools Holland”, an iconic musical program that has showcased everyone from Paul McCartney to Björk. She sang a duet withEric Church at the American Country Music Awardsin 2013. She, along with her distinctive dreadlocked mane, has enjoyed features in countless magazines, including the coveted September issue ofVoguemagazine andO: The Oprah Winfrey Magazine, as well as serious features on NPR’sAll Things Considered,Fresh Airwith Terry Gross andTiny Desk Concert. And, her last and much talked about 2013 debut albumPushin’ Against the Stone, was the creative product of her collaboration with Dan Auerbach of the Black Keys and record producer Kevin Augunas.

The British lutenist, scholar, and pedagogue,  Nigel North has been captivating audiences with his brilliant playing for decades. He has become one of the premier authorities on the performance and interpretation of early music. His performance at theAudible Cloisters: Guitar Marathonwill focus on French lute music of the 17th century. In the following interview he elucidates certain aspects of the lute and music of this period. Additionally, he talks about the issue of authenticity in early music and gives his advice to young artists negotiating the pitfalls of historical performance.

As we prepare for the ‘Audible Cloisters’ marathon in May we hope to give all the artists involved an opportunity to share their thoughts and opinions about their lives in music and provide a greater insight for our audience. We are kicking off this series of interviews with the brilliant guitarist,Dylan Carlson. For the better part of 30 years Carlson has been the frontman of the drone metal band, Earth. He has subsequently gone on to cultivate a unique style blending a visceral, raw aesthetic with an almost penitent improvisational simplicity. We conducted this interview through email and, like his music, his words seem to pour fourth - devoid of capitalization, salient in their content, and showing intensity in a variety of different subjects. We are very excited to present this lens into a man that can appear a little elusive and the music behind him.

This year, we asked musicians to fill out a page in our 2014 digital scrapbook (crayons and colored pens provided). The results are fascinating--- see this fun assortment of Q&A's from your favorite artists at the New York Guitar Festival:

What current or future project are you the most excited about?

The Footstool Chronicles

What current or future project are you the most excited about?

Pepe Romero opened the 2014 New York Guitar Festival on Friday, January 10th at the Brookfield Place Winter Garden. We interviewed him here during his soundcheck.This New York Guitar Festival appearance marks Maestro Romero's first ever all-Bach recital in New York.

Last Friday, January 10th, saw the opening night for the2014 New York Guitar Festivalwith a concert by the distinguished classical guitarist,Pepe Romero. The New York Guitar Festival, which has been running since 1999, offers unique musical events such as the Alt-Guitar Summit and Silent Films/Live Guitars series.

What current or future project are you most excited about?

What current or future project are you most excited about?

Around 8 years ago, I was invited by David Spelman to be a part of an intriguing event:  A Guitar Marathon focusing on the music of Spain, curated by my dear friend and “guitar guru” Pepe Romero.  At first I wondered:  what on earth is a “guitar marathon”?  I had visions of guitarists chugging Gatorade, 30 consecutive relay-race performances of the Chaconne, oxygen masks for the faint of heart.  What it turned out to be (at the 92ndSt. Y uptown) was a cavalcade of incredible players, presenting beautiful Spanish guitar music from the Renaissance to the present.  I’ll never forget the scene backstage:  hanging out with legends like Paul O’Dette, Eliot Fisk, Ana Vidovic, and of course, Pepe. And for the audience, the wide variety of styles and players made for a day of delicious guitar overdose, like watching three seasons of “Breaking Bad” in one go.

William Kanengiser:I’m sitting here with the great maestro Pepe Romero, discussing his All-Bach recital on January 10 that will kick off the 2014 New York Guitar Festival. Pepe, quite a few years ago, you did a series of All-Bach recitals; is this one at the Brookfield Place Winter Garden the first one in a long time?