Austin Guitar Salon THIS Saturday
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New Matching Campaign Announced!
ACGS End of Year Matching Campaign
ACGS is proud to announce a 5-year, $50,000 grant that has been generously offered by The Meyer Levy Charitable Foundation, Tobin Janel Levy & Michael R. Levy in support of our Educational Outreach Program. Through this grant, the Meyer Levy Charitable Foundation will match up to $10,000 in donations from our community that arrive by this December 31st!
With this announcement, we begin our end-of-year matching campaign to raise $40,000 to keep ACGS strong. Now is a particularly great time to donate because the first $10,000 to arrive will be matched by the Meyer-Levy Foundation!
Donate Online or call 512-300-ACGS.
Austin Pictures, with over 1,500 in the audience, more than 100 participants from over 1,000 miles away, and many, many smiles from the pros, the students, the artists and our patrons, was a crowning achievement for ACGS in 2011. We are most thankful and proud, however, of our new education programs - especially those at the Texas School for the Blind and Visually Impaired and our new Program at the Gardner Betts facility of the Travis County Juvenile Justice System.
Just two weeks ago our Director of Education gave an address at a UT conference on arts and juvenile justice about our work at Gardner Betts (read the article here), and just a few days ago we received a request for support from Canada to help build a guitar program in one of the largest schools for the blind in North America.
In these, and many other ways, the groundbreaking work we do here, with your support, is radiating outward to positively impact the lives of thousands and thousands of young people.
Please give today. Thank you for you support.
Isaac Bustos - Saturday Night!
I'm super excited to be presenting Isaac Bustos this Saturday evening at 8PM. Isaac is a fantastic performer. I've heard him many times, and he just keeps getting better and better.
It's a landmark moment in some ways too, because in my 15 years with ACGS, this is the first time we've ever presented a "local" player on our flagship international concert series. Isaac is, of course, originally from Nicaragua, but he did is graduate work right here in Austin. Amazing players, truly world class players, have come through the amazing UT guitar studio, but even so, Bustos is the first we've ever presented on the ICS. I hope that gives you a sense of just how much I admire this wonderful talent.
I'm simply thrilled for Saturday's show. We'll hear beauty, color, nuance, speed, clarity, the whole nine yards.
If you'd like to join us, you can buy tickets online now, or give us a call at 512-300-ACGS.
The concert begins at 8PM Saturday at Northwest Hills United Methodist Church (7050 Village Center Drive). Arrive early for a pre-concert performance presented by students in the Akins High School guitar program.
Isaac will also teach a master class to pre-selected students, also at Northwest Hills, Friday from 4-7 (free and open to the public).
Akins Students perform Wednesday (10/26) for Art Opening at Dell JCC!
We’re excited to report that 10 students from the Akins High School guitar program will perform for the opening of an exciting exhibit next Wednesday night at the Dell JCC (10/26 at 7PM).
The exhibit is called Transforming Nature and features the first US exhibit of the work of Hyunsuk Lee Erickson. Her mixed media landscapes meld the highly colored elegance of Eastern design with ingeniously found objects.
The exhibit opening is free and open to the pubic! For details, contact Pam Prais at (512)735-8000 or [email protected].
Come out for what promises to be a nice night of great art and music!
The Kinney Company Sponsors Fall Austin Guitar Salon Series: An Interview
The idea of Austin Guitar Salon first occurred to me in the car as I was driving south on Speedway from 45th Street in Hyde Park. It was so simple! I was driving past a large, stately home with a plaque on the front designating it’s historical significance, and the whole vision just popped into my head: “wouldn’t it be great to present classical guitar concerts in historic homes with wine and cheese receptions?”!
Doing something in historic homes in Austin means The Heritage Society of Austin, and I have two particularly good friends, Lazan Pargaman and Lin Team who popped into my head as the perfect people to call to flesh out the idea. By the time we had sat down for lunch, I’d already met with John and Kendall Antonelli from Antonelli’s Cheese Shop, and so Austin Guitar Salon was beginning to take shape.
Lazan and Lin went beyond helping me flesh out the idea, and they went beyond connecting me with the Heritage Society of Austin, they offered – through The Kinney Company – to sponsor our entire first series (spring 2011). And they are sponsoring our fall 2011 series as well.
I am incredibly grateful to Lazan and Lin and The Kinney Company for helping turn this daydream into a reality, and I thought it might be fun to learn a bit more about them.
Matthew Hinsley: Tell me about yourselves and the Kinney Company. How long have you been in Austin?
Lazan Pargaman & Lin Team: Founded in 1995, The Kinney Company is a small real estate agency with a special focus on homes in Central Austin. We pride ourselves in providing our clients with exceptional client service and hands-on attention to detail.
Currently, there are three of us, all with long histories in Austin and with combined experience in real estate totaling over 38 years.
MH: You are sponsoring a collaboration between ACGS and The Heritage Society of Austin. I believe you have long connections with both organizations, and I’d love to hear about them.
LP<: As realtors with a special interest in old homes, all of us at The Kinney Company have long supported the work of the Heritage Society of Austin. Company founder Teddy Kinney and Lin Team have served several terms on the board of the Heritage Society through the years. Lin is currently an active board member and has recently co-chaired its Preservation Committee.
When Lazan's daughters took up classical guitar six years ago, she got involved with the Classical Guitar Society and became not only a new audience member at the wonderful concerts but also a supporter of the Educational Outreach Program.
Coincidentally, a few years back, Lin helped a nice young couple buy a home here in Austin. The man was a doctoral student in guitar at UT. Through him, Lin became involved in the Austin Classical Guitar Society and has had the pleasure of watching him build it into the terrific organization that it is today. Lin thanks you, Matt!
MH: I remember that well, Lin! Glenda and I are incredibly thankful for the home you found us – and we’re still happily living in it! Why do you feel it’s important to give back to the community?
LT&LP: At The Kinney Company, we believe that supporting programs for those in need is a responsibility we all share and we feel blessed to be able to do so. But people need food for the spirit as well, and that’s a role that music, the arts and architecture can help play in our lives. We find a lot of satisfaction in supporting programs to which we have a special connection because of our personal interests and professional expertise.
Although none of us plays the guitar, we all enjoy the music. And, we all have a deep appreciation for old homes. This salon series has been great fun for us because it’s the marriage of these two interests!
MH: Are there other organizations or causes you like to support?
LT&LP: Lin’s background is in advocacy for progressive social causes. For many years she served as Director of Texas impact, a broadly ecumenical, faith-based advocacy organization working to change social policy at the state level. She still serves on the board of Texas Impact.
Lin has also been active in neighborhood planning and organizations, where she finds all politics to be truly local. “Democracy at its most immediate -- and tedious -- is played out in our neighborhoods, and I feel a deep obligation to work with these groups to bring people together to share visions and solve problems,” (Lin said).
Lazan currently serves on the board of The Austin Project, a non-profit organization designed to improve the lives of children, youth and families, by strengthening families and promoting early literacy. She is also involved in the Fine Arts Academy at McCallum High School, promoting the arts and artists in fundamental ways in our public education system.
MH: Well, we’re so looking forward to this Saturday and the concert at Jane Sibley’s incredible home. Thank you so much for helping us to make it happen, and I look forward to seeing you both there! Before we go, is there anything else you’d like to share?
LP<: The ACGS outreach programs are a beautiful example of an ecosystem of good works that link together music, the arts, social welfare, education and healthy living -- all vital elements of a strong community spirit
Historic preservation plays a similar role by connecting people with art, architecture, social welfare, cultural history and environmental sustainability.
We enthusiastically support both the Heritage Society and the Classical Guitar Society as a way to participate in that interconnected vision.
Matt Talks with Classical Guitar Alive's Tony Morris - Upcoming CGA! fundraiser 10/29
Classical Guitar Alive! is a global classical guitar radio phenomenon produced right here in Austin by Tony Morris. The show airs in Austin on Fridays at 9PM and again on Sundays at 11am on KMFA, 89.5FM, and each week brings insight, interviews and great music with guests that range from composers and guitar intellectuals to up and coming virtuosi to the classical guitar world’s brightest stars.
Classical Guitar Alive! has a wonderful fundraiser coming up on Saturday, October 29th, one I attend almost every year, and I thought I’d try to snag Tony for a quick conversation about himself, his wife – and fabulous flute player – Renata Green, his show, the fundraiser, and more.
Matthew Hinsley: Tell me how you first got interested in producing Classical Guitar Alive?
Tony Morris: I started doing the Classical Guitar Alive radio program in 1993, shortly after graduation from UT with my Master’s in guitar with Adam Holzman. Like a lot of students nearing graduation, I worried about career options.
Fortunately, during my last semester at UT, Adam told me about a guitar teaching job opening at a college in Houston. I applied for it, and had a successful audition. I remember the dean who auditioned me said that he wanted me to keep in touch with him, because he had a feeling that I “was going places.”
I took that to mean that I was going to get the job, so I prepared for the move to Houston, and began brainstorming about how I could establish myself there. I came up with an idea to do a guitar radio program on one of the local public radio stations there. I was devastated when I learned that I didn’t get the job. They hired a local guitarist instead.
Anyway, I picked myself up and realized that the guitar radio program was still a good idea, and that maybe I could do it here in Austin - even though I had absolutely no Radio-TV-Film training… and in those days was painfully shy and hated public speaking. What was I thinking?!
Nevertheless, I started pestering both KMFA and KUT, and KMFA relented first. Scott Dawes, the program director then, agreed to do a guitar show on a trial basis, and the first CGA show aired on KMFA in October of 1993. The opening and closing theme music back then was a piece that I wrote and recorded. I chose the name “Classical Guitar Alive” because I had read an article in Guitar Player Magazine titled “Is Classical Guitar Dead?” The radio program was and is my rebuttal.
In the beginning, I would go to KMFA, record my commentary on their reel-to-reel tape machine, and then hand them a playlist and stack of CDs. The on-air announcer would play the tape, pause it, and then play a track from the CD according to the playlist. A few months later, I was offered a part-time weekend announcer position at KMFA, and I started doing CGA live. It was terrifying at first, but exciting, too.
MH: I didn’t arrive in town until 1996 – but already Austin was buzzing about the show. I remember one particularly colorful evening after we had presented Bill Kanengiser in concert, and Bill and I came by the KMFA studio so the two of you could do an interview. It was after midnight! The show has certainly grown, Tony, tell me about the growth, what has been most exciting?
TM: The show is now on over 250 radio stations across the US and internationally, which sounds like a lot, but there is still a lot of room to grow. The most exciting thing recently has been that CGA is now finally broadcast in New York City, thanks to the expansion of the WWFM network in New Jersey. I have been trying to get CGA on in NYC for years. We also recently added stations in Philadelphia and Atlanta, both major markets.
MH: Let’s talk about this event coming up for you later this month. I’ve been many times and love it… what is it, and can folks still get tickets?
TM: Yes! Classical Guitar Alive is having its 6th annual fundraiser event on Saturday, Oct. 29th from 3:00pm-7:00pm at the beautiful Wimberley home of Charlie & Taako Parker, at 300 Loma Vista in Wimberley. Charlie and Taako Parker are great supporters of both Classical Guitar Alive and the Austin Classical Guitar Society. We’re very excited to have Susan McDonald back by popular demand as our special musical guest. Proceeds benefit the Classical Guitar Alive nonprofit organization’s internationally-broadcast radio program, and its community outreach program. For reservations, folks can call us at (512) 657-1400 or send an email to [email protected]. You can also purchase tickets online here.
MH: I'd love to hear a bit about Tony Morris the guitarist, and CGA's performance outreach.
TM: Thanks! Flutist Renata Green, my wife, directs CGA’s Community Outreach program. Most arts nonprofits do community outreach, like ACGS’s wonderful educational outreach, but CGA’s outreach program is unique in that we are the only one that sends our musicians to perform in hospitals, children’s shelters, hospices and more.
I’ll never forget, over a year ago, Renata, oboist Jennifer Bernard, and I performed in the lobby of the Dell Children’s Hospital. There was a little boy about 8 years old with severe burns walking with his grandmother. Despite his injuries, he started marching around in time to the music and got very excited, asked us about the instruments. His grandmother was very happy to see him so enthused, and I was so proud of Renata and Jennifer for their professionalism and for how engaging they were with him.
My first performance in Austin was Christmas Eve, 1990. I had just moved here, didn’t know anyone, and didn’t have family or friends here yet, so I was feeling a little lonesome and sorry for myself. I made myself snap out of it and called a local hospice and asked if I could play (pro bono) for their patients. I played at Hospice Austin’s Christopher House for an audience of two people: a bed-ridden patient in the final stages of full-blown AIDS and his nurse. The patient said, “Oh, a classical guitarist. Know any Albeniz?” I started doing volunteer outreach when I was an undergrad student for the performance experience, and just kept doing it.
MH: You and Renata are animal lovers. Tell me about your pets?
TM: We have two dogs, Lucy, Jiggly-Puff, and a 3-legged cat with the unfortunate name of Gimpy (we didn’t name her that). We don’t have kids yet, but if you total our pets’ weight, they’re roughly equivalent to one child, albeit a very smelly and poorly-mannered one!
MH: Thanks so much for taking the time to talk with me today, Tony. It’s tremendous to get an update on your amazing work, and to learn a bit more about your journey here. Is there anything else you'd like to share?
TM: Come on out to CGA’s event in Wimberley on Oct. 29th!
And, there are two big projects in the works, a PBS TV program called American Classical that CGA is developing in conjunction with KLRN, which did the pilot for The Antiques Roadshow. The format is part home tour, part house concert with classical guests and stars from other kinds of music. I told my co-producer that that I was concerned that I had a face made for radio, but he reassured me by saying, “Tony, no one is too ugly for PBS.” Whew! What a relief! He did tell me to drop some weight for the cameras, which I’ve done.
I can’t say more about the second project, other than it is very exciting. I recently had to choose between expanding CGA’s work, doing these two new big projects or continuing my adjunct guitar professor job at Texas Lutheran University in Seguin, TX. I did the unthinkable in the guitar world, which is to voluntarily leave a college teaching job (and on very good terms, I should mention!). CGA’s mission is to promote the love of classical music with the guitar to the widest possible audience in innovative ways which have the deepest impact. The second project is not a CGA project, but it sure does fit its mission.
Tony Morris and Renata Green (with doggie)
ebay auction link: click here to bid on Austin Pictures Paintings
All student paintings are on ebay now. Auctions close on Monday afternoon.
Click here to be taken to the auction page.
There you can click the image of the painting you would like to bid on.
Austin Pictures Top 12!
We’ve had an amazing time putting Austin Pictures together, from selecting the incredible artists, and watching them complete their brilliant paintings, to seeing the many ensemble members learning Joseph Williams’ new Austin-inspired piece, to working with Caballero, Maestro Bay, and the Miró Quartet, to putting the extensive AV together with the Alamo Drafthouse!
The show is this Saturday, and here’s our top-twelve favorite things online so far.
#12 The article in the Oklahoman about the kids from OKC coming down.
#11 Our talk with composer Joseph Williams II about his new piece.
#10 A clip of Caballero… doing the amazing thing he does!
#9 Our talk with the Miró String Quartet.
#8 The wonderful community pictures shared via Facebook.
#7 A conversation with the Alamo’s Tim League.
#6 The great Austin Pictures Article at CultureMap.
#5 This great TV video story about the students from Brownsville.
#3 The Austin Chronicle Article about Austin Pictures.
#2 The incredible video piece by KUT about the artists!
…and…
#1 The 11 commissioned paintings: see them online here!
Saturday Night: Media, Parking, and more…
Here's the latest on Austin Pictures! Love to see that media pick up.
I particularly like the video piece KUT did with the young artists - it opens with them not being able to remember Mussorgsky's name! Funny!
Media: Austin Pictures will be featured live on YNN today at 11am. A full-hour radio story will air at 7PM tonight on Classical Austin on KMFA, 89.5 FM. Friday morning at 8:50am Jorge Caballero will perform live on the Fox 7 Morning News program. A funny and inspiring video story on the artists just came out online on KUT’s Storyboard (whole story here)! And a great event overview article is here at CultureMap.
Also yesterday this great TV Story came out about the students in Brownsville who are busily preparing to come here to be part of the show! It’s a great companion piece to the article in the Oklahoman a few weeks back about the high school students in Oklahoma City who are also preparing like crazy.
Tickets: Are available at (877) 435-9849 or online. Save 15-20% by purchasing ACGS Season Tickets online or at 512-300-2247 (includes Austin Pictures). ACGS Season tickets will be sold only through 5PM tomorrow (Thursday). ACGS Season Tickets will be unavailable Friday or at the door Saturday, though single tickets for Austin Pictures will be available as long as supplies last.
Parking: The best guide for parking at ACL Live is online here. You’ll see 7 nearby options on a map with details below it!
Austin Pictures Insight Videos: Alamo Drafthouse’s Tim League, ASO’s Maestro Peter Bay, Composer Joseph Williams, Miró String Quartet.
Most popular AP blog posts: Artwork has arrived, The Program for Saturday Night, Austin Pictures Top 10, Jorge Caballero.