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| Guitar Fest, competition this weekend |
Michael
Lee
Entertainment Beat |
Internationally renowned
classical guitarists return to Boone for the Eighth Annual Appalachian
Guitar Fest and Competition.
Dr. Douglas James, the festival director and
director of guitar studies for the Mariam Cannon Hayes School of
Music, along with Elliot Frank, Duo Rossignol and the Klasinc &
Loncar Duo head a world-class field of teachers and competitors
at the Broyhill Music Center April 4-6.
Three concerts featuring the guest artists will
be held in Rosen Concert Hall.
James and Duo Rossignol will be performing Friday
evening at 8 p.m.
James has appeared throughout the United States,
Europe and Mexico.
In 1995, James was awarded his second National
Endowment for the Arts Solo Recitalist Fellowship for his work in
nineteenth century historical performance.
He will open the show and be performing works
by Mauro Giuliani and Fernando Sor.
Duo Rossignol, featuring Hazel Ketchum and Christopher
Berg, will bring to life rarely heard music from the Renaissance
and Baroque periods on lutes and early guitars.
Ketchum is a lutist, guitarist and singer.
Berg is a professor of music at the University
of South Carolina where he directs the classical guitar program.
Frank and the Klasinc & Loncar Duo will perform
Saturday at 8 p.m.
Frank is the founder of the guitar studies program
at East Carolina University and his students have won many awards
including the Music Teacher’s National Association Wurlitzer
Young Artist Competition.
Frank, who is an aficionado on the guitar music
of Hispanic culture, will be performing works by Antonio Lauro,
Agustin Barrios Mangore, Andrew Zohn, Matthew Dunne and Jose Luis
Merlin.
Klasinc & Loncar, featuring Miroslav Loncar
and Natasa Klasinc-Loncar, are a Croatian-born husband and wife
duo who received their doctoral of musical arts degrees from the
University of Southern Mississippi.
They now live in Hattiesburg, Miss., where Loncar
directs the guitar program at William Carey College and Klasinc
directs the guitar programs at Copiah-Lincoln Community College,
Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College and Pearl River Community
College.
The duo will be performing original transcriptions
of works by Handel, Robert Schumann, Isaac Albeniz, Gerswhin and
Manuel de Falla.
James said he is thrilled about the festival.
“I am very exited. This is always a very
busy time. It’s a tradition; lots of people look forward to
everyone coming together. A lot of them are friends and if they
are not, they will be by the time they leave,” James said.
The final concert is Sunday at 1 p.m. and will
feature the finalists from the guitar competition.
The competition will begin Thursday and continue
through Sunday.
The semi-final competition, which consists of
the top 12 competitors from the preliminary round, will begin at
5 p.m. on Saturday and is open to the public.
“We have 24 musicians competing for $2,000
in prize money. It’s an international field, and we have players
coming from all over: Texas, New York, Florida, Ohio and even one
player from Bulgaria,” James said. “It’s an opportunity
for young players to sharpen their performance skills and become
better players. It’s very exciting.”
There will also be master classes and building
workshops taught by all the guest artists on each of the three days.
Students around campus said they are excited
about the festival.
“I think that it’s interesting, and
it will get students involved in music. It’s a good way to
bring classical music back to the younger generation,” junior
hospitality major Sara J. Hyett said.
“I think it will be a very good experience.
It will be something that everyone can enjoy and relate to because
classical music is easy on the ears and everybody likes guitar music,”
criminal justice major Nicole Weiffenbach said.
“All the music is very intimate and personal.
The Broyhill Recital Hall only has 125 seats and it’s all acoustic
and completely unamplified,” James said.
Tickets for the concerts are $8 for students
and $12 for the public. A three-day pass, which includes admittance
for all concerts, workshops and master classes is $60.
Advance tickets are available at the Farthing
box office or at the Broyhill Music Center the night of the concert.
For more information, call the School of Music
at 262-3020 or visit http://www.music.appstate.edu/guitarfest. |
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| Codeseven brings live show to Boone |
Kevin
Delury
Contributing Writer |
The lineup last Friday
night at the Tremont Music Hall in Charlotte reads like a who’s
who of the North Carolina hardcore scene. Starting off the evening
was Aria, followed up by Celebrity, Between the Buried, and Me and
Hopesfall.
Slotted in the midst of this all-star heavy lineup is Winston-Salem’s
Codeseven. The band takes the stage complete with an ethereal light
show, and singer Jeff Jenkins immediately begins to throw himself
about the stage like a possessed rag doll. Without warning, Jenkins
focuses all his attention on the microphone and attacks it with
all his energy, belting out with a voice that almost completely
changes his demeanor.
The audience is likewise taken with the music, either singing along
with Jenkins or simply nodding their heads. Interesting, considering
Codeseven’s music isn’t exactly what would be labeled
as a hardcore act.
The band’s latest album, “The Rescue,” abandoned
the breakdowns and screaming sing-along anthems of their previous
albums “Paper or Plastic,” “A Sense of Coalition”
and “Division of Labor” in favor of a more experimental
sound a la Radiohead’s “OK Computer.” Their music
now comes on as a layered sonic opus, braving territory that hardcore
bands rarely, if ever, venture into.
“Everything we do always changes, and we’re always progressing
musically,” guitarist James Tuttle said. “We don’t
hold back. We’re not afraid to try something new and push ourselves
to do something different regardless of what other people may want
us to do.”
Codeseven’s roster is comprised of vocalist Jeff Jenkins, guitarists
Eric Weyer and James Tuttle, Jon Tuttle on bass, and drummer Mathew
Tuttle.
James, Jon and Mathew Tuttle, all brothers, have been playing with
Codeseven since its conception 10 years ago.
“I had no intention of playing with my brothers at all,”
James Tuttle said. “We all thought we were too good to play
with each other.”
Still, the fact that three-fifths of the band is family undoubtedly
adds a fluid, seamless quality to the music.
“It gives it sort of a fingerprint,” Jenkins said.
While their music doesn’t necessarily fit the mold of what
most think a hardcore band should be, Codeseven has continued to
tour with heavier acts such as Eighteen Visions and play nationwide
hardcore festivals such as Florida’s Gainesville Fest, where
the band was slotted alongside the likes of Everytime I Die, Shai
Hulud and Converge.
“It’s very awkward,” James Tuttle said. “We’re
always the odd band out. It’s a challenge, definitely. We’re
still a hardcore band, we’re still in that mindset, and we
love playing with hardcore bands. Musically we don’t fit in
at all, but we’re gradually winning the hardcore crowd over
instead of distancing ourselves. We just want to expose ourselves
to people who wouldn’t want to hear this and see what we can
create from that.”
On April 10, Codeseven will bring their live show back to Boone.
The band will be performing at Geno’s Sports Lounge as part
of WASU’s 31st Anniversary Boonetown Mix-up.
Admission is $5 with doors opening at 8 p.m. For more information
on Codeseven, visit their Web sites at http://www.ncmusic.com/bands/codeseven. |
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