The Toronto International Guitar Festival was a triennial guitar festival that took place between 1975 and 1987 in Toronto, Canada. It was founded by Eli Kassner [1] and was the subject of Guitar, a 1988 film from Rhombus Media. [2]
The festival grew out of discussions Kassner had with members of the Guitar Society of Toronto. The first festival, Guitar '75, attracted some 500 guitar teachers, students, composers, luthiers, and aficionados. Performers included Carlos Barbosa-Lima, Leo Brouwer, Oscar Ghiglia, Alirio Diaz, and the duo of Ako Ito and Henry Dorigny. The festival's competition winners were Sharon Isbin, Manuel Barrueco, David Leisner, and Eliot Fisk. [3]
Major guitar works premiered at the festival included R. Murray Schafer's Le Cri de Merlin [1] and Leo Brouwer's Toronto Concerto, the latter with John Williams as soloist and Brouwer himself conducting. [4]
The Canadian classical guitarist Dr. Christopher Boston, wrote his treatise on the festival, it is entitled "Canadian Works Written For The Toronto International Guitar Festival". [5]
Juan Leovigildo Brouwer Mezquida is a Cuban composer, conductor, and classical guitarist. He is a Member of Honour of the International Music Council.
Sharon Isbin is a classical guitarist and the founding director of the guitar department at the Juilliard School.
Julian Alexander Bream was an English classical guitarist and lutenist. Regarded as one of the most distinguished classical guitarists of the 20th century, he played a significant role in improving the public perception of the classical guitar as a respectable instrument. Over the course of a career that spanned more than half a century, Bream also helped revive interest in the lute.
Liona Maria Carolynne Boyd, is a classical guitarist often referred to as the First Lady of the Guitar.
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Gordon O'Brien is a Canadian guitarist.
Canadian blues is the blues and blues-related music performed by blues bands and performers in Canada. Canadian blues artists include singers, players of the main blues instruments: guitar, harmonica, keyboards, bass and drums, songwriters and music producers. In many cases, blues artists take on multiple roles. For example, the Canadian blues artist Steve Marriner is a singer, harmonica player, guitarist, songwriter and record producer.
Eli Kassner, was a Canadian classical guitar teacher and musician.
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Ricardo Cobo is a classical guitarist, considered one of the leading guitarists of his generation. He gave his professional debut with the Orquesta Filarmónica de Bogotá at age seventeen. Cobo was the first Latin American to win the Guitar Foundation of America's International Concert Artist Competition according to the foundation's website, and to date, only one other Latin American-born guitarist has won the prestigious award.
Dennis Foon is a Canadian playwright, producer, screenwriter and novelist.
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Timothy Wesley John Brady is a Canadian composer, electric guitarist, improvising musician, concert producer, record producer and cultural activist. Working in the field of contemporary classical music, experimental music, and musique actuelle, his compositions utilize a variety of styles from serialism to minimalism and often incorporate modern instruments such as electric guitars and other electroacoustic instruments. His music is marked by a synthesis of musical languages, having developed an ability to use elements of many musical styles while retaining a strong sense of personal expression. Some of his early recognized works are the 1982 orchestral pieces Variants and Visions, his Chamber Concerto (1985), the chamber trio ...in the Wake..., and his song cycle Revolutionary Songs (1994).
The Quaternaglia Guitar Quartet (QGQ) is a classical guitar ensemble from São Paulo, Brazil, founded in 1992. The Quartet has become a reference both for its artistic excellence and for its contributions to the expansion of the guitar quartet repertoire. Quaternaglia has developed a canon of original pieces and arrangements with the collaboration of a variety of composers such as Egberto Gismonti, Leo Brouwer, Javier Farías, Sérgio Molina, Almeida Prado, Sergio Assad, João Luiz, Paulo Bellinati and Marco Pereira Quaternaglia’s current members are Sidney Molina, Thiago Abdalla, Fabio Ramazzina and Chrystian Dozza.
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Luis Manuel Molina de Varona is a Cuban musician, concert guitarist, composer, arranger, musical director, broadcaster and radio producer.
Carlos Molina is a Cuban guitarist and professor.
The Newman & Oltman Guitar Duo is an American Classical Guitar Ensemble which was formed in 1978. Known for adventurous programming and collaborations as well as their contributions to the repertoire of the guitar duo ensemble, the Duo was founded by Michael Newman and Laura Oltman, who have performed together since it was formed.