The Adelaide Festival Centre, one of the leading performing arts centers in Australia, has strung together a spectacular new event, the inaugural Adelaide International Guitar Festival. The new ten day festival, November 23 – December 2, 2007, is inspired and assisted by the New York Guitar Festival. Over 100 musicians from around the world will converge on Adelaide to honour and celebrate the guitar in over 40 guitar centric events, spanning all music genres (blues, jazz, classical, experimental, blues & roots, world, and more...) The Festival will take place in various venues at the Adelaide Festival Centre and in Elder Park.

On January 18th we kicked off the first of a four-concert series at Merkin Concert Hall, with a tribute to the great "Mississippi" John Hurt. Below is an article from the New Jersey Star-Ledger about the series...and a review from The New York Times.

A few photos from our Nehemiah "Skip" James tribute that took place at Merkin Concert Hall on January 25th, 2006...

Our 2006 festival kicked off with a free concert celebrating the 25th anniversary of the classic Bruce Springsteen album, “Nebraska.” An amazing roster of artists (including a very special guest for the encore) joined us at the World Financial Center’s Winter Garden, to interpret the songs from The Boss’ sixth album.

On February 1st, the third of a four-part concert series at Merkin Concert Hall, paid tribute to the great Charley Patton. Below is an review from the New Jersey Star-Ledger...

For guitar afficionados there is no better place to be in the first days of Autumn than New York City. For the past four years David Spelman, a protean guitar enthusiast, has presented a beguiling array of performances under the rubric of the New York Guitar Festival. This fall's festival, for instance, included a Baptist Blues frenzy of sacred pedal steel, tributes to fallen icons Jerry Garcia and George Harrison, an electric guitar quartet reading from dense scores, Andy Summers (of The Police) playing Brazilian tunes, and downtown polymath Elliot Sharp torturing an acoustic guitar in homage to John Fahey.

By popular request, we’re posting the repertoire that each performer played at our third biennial Guitar Marathon at the 92nd Street Y’s Kaufman Auditorium. Also, stay tuned, as we’ll be podcasting audio and video clips from the marathon on the iTunes music store as well.

The New York Guitar Festival 2006 launched its 2006 event by honoring Bruce Springsteen's 1982 Nebraska album with a free gala concert under the glass atrium of the World Financial Center Winter Garden on January 14th.

On January 25th, 2004 we held our second all-day guitar extravaganza. The marathon event brought together guitarists from around the world and received extensive media coverage. Below is a review that ran in the New York Times on January 30, 2004.

On January 20th, 2002 we held our first ever all-day guitar extravaganza. The 10-hour musical event brought together guitarists from around the world and received extensive coverage in the local and national media. Here are a few snapshots from what Jazz Times called "a veritable guitar orgy." Below is a review titled "Celebrating Six Strings -- More or Less" that ran in the Wall Street Journal.

On Thursday, January 26th 2006, steel guitar and Dobro virtuoso Cindy Cashdollar was joined by Larry Campbell, Theresa Campbell, and Amy Helm for a free lunchtime concert at the World Financial Center’s Winter Garden.

A bunch of folks wrote to us, asking about the “walk in” music they heard at the Winter Garden before the show. Below is the list of those songs. The first few were offered as a gentle tribute to Chris Whitley (1960-2005)… we’d wanted him to participate, but he took his last breath a few weeks before the concert. We miss him greatly.

Thanks to the generosity of Apple Computer, The Krannert Center at the University of Illinois, and our festival artists, we’re presenting festival-related podcast episodes. These sessions will feature artist interviews, never-released tracks, live concert performances, after-hours jam sessions, and more.

The conundrum that is Tom Waits, musically and otherwise, revealed itself long before the term "singer-songwriter" became fashionable—let alone marketable. As a musician, actor and all-around entertainer, Waits cannot be defined––in fact, "definition" is a commercial concept of which he has successfully steered clear throughout his career.

Today's most familiar musical instruments have each evolved, sometimes over centuries, often changing size, shape and even the material from which they are made, leaving earlier incarnations behind to period-instrument groups or pawn shops. But each time someone tinkers with the guitar, a new and separate instrument is born that carries on a separate life.

Familiar staples of the American folk, blues, and gospel traditions such as "Samson and Delilah", "You Got to Move", "Candy Man", "Death Don’t Have No Mercy" and "Twelve Gates to the City" have all closely been associated with Reverend Gary Davis, from before his recording career began in 1935 to his timely rediscovery during the 1950s and 1960s folk and blues scene revivals.

By The Neck, an exhibition of photographs by Danny Clinch, was on view at The Milton J. Weill Art Gallery at the 92nd Street Y to run concurrently with the New York Guitar Festival. The exhibit was curated by the New York Guitar Festival's David Spelman.

The New York Guitar Festival will certainly get many people talking about the guitar. Here are some quotes from musicians who have already been affected by the dangerous curves of the instrument:

Hank O'Neal is "a wonderful photographer — his long personal and professional associations with jazz musicians imbue his work with rare perception and intimacy." – Gary Giddins,The Village Voice

What happens when an accomplished painter becomes obsessed with guitars? Looking at the work of Paul Chase answers that question...