GRISHA: A Reflection from Hector Aguilar and Tony Mariano
This past weekend at ACG was spectacular! We had our 2022-2023 Season Opening Night with flamenco prodigy, Grisha Goryachev. The concert was absolutely stunning and exhilarating! We were swept away by Grisha’s impressive speed and beautiful musicianship. It was so wonderful to be back in the gorgeous AISD Performing Arts Center with close to 1,000 friends!
Not only did we have a magical evening on Saturday, we had an entire week with Grisha filled with amazing moments! Not everyone knows that our guest artists also spend several days in our community teaching and visiting schools!
“All the middle school students were amazed and came back the next day telling me they wanted to get better,” Hector Aguilar, reported about his students in the Gardner Betts Juvenile Justice Center. “They are so excited they could jam with Grisha and perform for him. It was already a good group of young men, but after the visit they’re even more patient and attentive.”
Grisha also played for a high school unit at Gardner Betts. Hector shared:
“The high school group is two students with a third one that is not in the class but is in their unit - which is where the classes are held. Usually, the third student goes into his dorm because he does not want to be in the room with the rest of the class, but when Grisha visited he came out and sat down to join the performance and even asked questions. It was great because he doesn’t communicate much normally when I am there. The newest member of this group also had a profound experience. Prior to Grisha's visit he did not want to participate in the Hispanic Heritage Month Event we have coming up. We’d agreed that as long as he performed for Grisha's visit he would not have to participate in it. After his performance, and Grisha's beautiful playing, the student was so inspired that he now wants to perform for the Hispanic Heritage Month presentation.”
Tony Mariano, ACG’s Director of Community Education, took Grisha to several high schools, and shared this reflection as well.
“There was a particular moment that happened at Bowie that I thought was worth sharing. It was a little reminder for me about why we do the things we do at ACG.
Grisha had just finished an amazing 45 minute set for the students at Bowie High School, who had crowded into the front and center section of the school's theatre to hear him play. Some students there had started playing guitar only a month or so ago. For them, this was their first ever artist they had seen up close and personal. Others in there had been playing for a long time and had been waiting with anticipation to see and meet Grisha for weeks.
After Grisha's last rasgueado and golpe, after the students quieted from their excited applause, there was time for questions. At first, there were the usual questions you'd expect: how many hours do you practice, what age did you start? But then there was a question that seemingly came out of nowhere, one that made Grisha pause. A student asked Grisha, "why do you do this?" Grisha paused and asked, "what do you mean?" The student clarified their question with "what motivates you to do this, what inspires you?"
Grisha looked right at him and told him that music is what gives him purpose. It's what gives him meaning to his life. It's what makes him feel whole. Music is what gives his deepest feelings a voice. For Grisha, music is the language that allowed him to express himself in a way that speech never could. And that expression can connect with others, and bring them closer to him.
On our way back to the car I looked at Grisha and told him how beautiful of a moment I thought that was. And without skipping a beat he said to me, "this is how I can help make the world a little better. This is how we all can help make this world a little better, in our own small ways." That moment was so special. When you put people like Grisha in a room with young minds, really special and beautiful things happen. Everyone looks inward to find the things that really matter to them. The things that give us purpose.”
We are so grateful for the time we’ve spent with Grisha and all the inspiring moments we’ve got to share.
Read a beautiful story about our Music & Healing program here.
Learn more about ACG Education services here.
Red Oak Hope: I Am Strong
We dream of a world where music is here for everyone, connecting us, inspiring us, and bringing joy and meaning wherever it goes. We are having our Fall fund drive here at ACG and it’s because of our community and supporters that we are able to share stories like this. Click here to learn more about supporting ACG.
Since 2019, ACG Music and Healing has partnered with Red Oak Hope, an international organization based out of Austin that brings freedom, hope, and restoration to victims of human trafficking and sexual exploitation. ACG artists meet with the individual women over the course of four to eight weeks to write and record an original song centered around her story. This song "I Am Strong" was written and performed by a young woman at Red Oak Hope this Fall with ACG Artist and Music and Healing Program Manager Claire Puckett.
Listen here:
https://soundcloud.com/austinclassicalguitar/i-am-strong
Watch to learn more about our Red Oak Hope: Austin Program:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7kWDaezrwHM&feature=youtu.be
Listen to another gorgeous piece from this program below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HALNQ2KT1Go&feature=youtu.be
Spreading Kindness with Jen Bamberg & Consuela Style
We dream of a world where music is here for everyone, connecting us, inspiring us, and bringing joy and meaning wherever it goes. We are having our Fall fund drive here at ACG and it’s because of our community and supporters that we are able to share stories like this. Click here to learn more about supporting ACG.
We are so grateful at ACG to have a team of such incredible, talented, hard working, and beautiful people. We wouldn't be where we are today without the work of our wonderful team.
Last week, ACG Events Director, Jen Bamberg, got nominated by her intern, Reilly, for a Certificate of Awesomeness with Consuela's It's not about the bag!
Here is what Reilly had to say about Jen in her nomination,
"I want to nominate Jen because she is an amazingly strong woman that fights for what she believes in. She cares for all people deeply and takes the time to get to know the guests and volunteers that come to the Austin Classical Guitar concerts and makes sure they have the best experience and get everything they need. I have been Jen's intern since January, and she really has become a work mama to me. She is always there for me whenever I need her, offering help and support in many ways. And she does this for all of her coworkers and friends, as I have seen throughout my time working with her. She is always the first in line to help others, and she works hard to improve her community through engagement with the arts at Austin Classical Guitar. Jen is a real catalyst for positive change, and she always empowers others, which is something I think we need more of these days. I believe Jen is more than deserving of this award for all of these reasons and more. She is an exceptional role model to me, and I want to let her know how much I, along with an immeasurable amount of others, appreciate her hard work, dedication, and love for her job and her community."
We are so grateful for everything Jen does. She is the backbone of our events and a bright light in the office everyday!
Thank you for everything Jen!
Learn more about this award here.
ACG Education
It’s our 2022 Fall Fund Drive! This year, ACG has a goal of raising $50,000 by Opening Night with Grisha on Sept. 24, in support of ACG Education. It’s because of our community and supporters that we are able to create meaningful connections through music. Click here to learn more about supporting ACG.
WORLD PREMIERE: Do What's In Your Heart with Clarice Assad
We are thrilled to partner with Tribeza Magazine for the live premiere of Do What’s in Your Heart, a mini-documentary chronicling triple Grammy-nominee Clarice Assad’s artist residency during ACG’s 21-22 season.
Tribeza Magazine will be hosting the screening on Thursday, August 18 at 7pm CT live on their website. (Link will not be live until Thursday)
Your questions and comments are welcome through ACG YouTube, Facebook, or Instagram, and will be answered in real time during the event.
Since 2001 ACG has established for-credit guitar education programs in more than 50 central Texas schools, including five juvenile detention facilities and Texas School for the Blind and Visually Impaired. These programs bring music into the lives of thousands of young people every year. In Austin ISD, guitar is now the second highest enrolled music course after band.
Do What’s In Your Heart shares the story behind the musical work Ms. Assad co-created with 50 students from around the city. The 32-minute film includes a performance of that work by a student orchestra, as well as a reimagined version by guitarist Jorge Caballero and the Miro String Quartet.
Do What’s In Your Heart is a celebration of community, collaboration, musical inspiration, and artistic freedom, created by our community for our community.
Special thanks to ACG’s Artistic Director Joe Williams, Education Director Travis Marcum, Northshore Media’s Kevin Chin, Clarice Assad, all the musicians, parents and students, and everyone else who helped make this year-long project possible.
Clarice Assad’s 21-22 Artist Residency was generously sponsored by atsec information security.
ACG 2022-23 Season: Individual Events On Sale!
We are thrilled to announce that season ticket packages are now available for Austin Classical Guitar’s 2022-23 Season: Home. Our Live at The Rosette series features spectacular artists from Italy, Poland, Spain, France, South Korea, and Peru, all performing in our new Hyde Park concert and creative learning center, The Rosette. Our ACG Originals series includes a silent film with live music, Matt Hinsley & Friends in a show called Gratitude, the culminating project of our Artist in Residence with Austin youth, and a uniquely powerful concert experience called We’ve Always Known built from songs produced by ACG’s Music & Healing program.
Today’s the day! If you want to make sure and get the best available seats for Grisha, or Andrea González Caballero, or SoloDuo, or our first-ever Music & Healing inspired concert We’ve Always Known, tickets for individual events are now available. We’re bringing artists from Italy, Spain, Poland, France, Peru and all over the US for transcendent evenings of musical magic all season long.
We’re so excited for our first full season in our new home, The Rosette. With just eighty-five seats, we’re told every spot in the house is fabulous, but here’s your chance to choose just the perfect one you for you for that special event.
Are you a streaming fan? If so, stay tuned! All major events at the Rosette will be streamed this year. Tickets will be available in September.
It’s also not too late to save money, and secure your seats for the whole season, with our ticket packages! We recommend jumping on your package purchases soon, though, because individual seat purchases will now affect package seating locations.
We can’t wait to share beautiful and inspiring moments with you soon!
Cálido Guitars: A Generous Gift
We dream of a world where music is here for everyone, connecting us, inspiring us, and bringing joy and meaning wherever it goes. We are having our Dream Big spring fund drive here at ACG and it’s because of our community and supporters that we are able to share stories like this. Click here to learn more about supporting ACG.
Today, we at ACG would like to share our utmost gratitude for Daniel Baugh and Cálido Guitars.
“Dan and Cálido have been partners and supporters of ACG Education for over ten years! Dan has frequently supported our programs with instruments and our teacher summits through sponsorship. Last year when the Dallas County Juvenile Justice System program started, Dan donated the first fifteen guitars we needed, and now, a year later as the program is doubling in size, Dan jumped at the chance to donate fifteen more. Dan’s got a huge heart, and I’m so grateful for his friendship and support.” - Matt Hinsley, Executive Director
ACG Juvenile Justice is a music education program creating a safe space for incarcerated youth in juvenile detention centers. Safe spaces are created through group guitar classes that provide an environment to foster a sense of personal success and accomplishment while providing an outlet for personal expression.
Daniel’s support of this program has and continues to create incredible opportunities, change, and joy in the lives of the young people in these communities. Learn more about our Juvenile Justice programs here.
This week we had the opportunity to speak with Daniel about his own interest in guitar and how he got to a place where he’s able to give back to the community!
Daniel took piano lessons for a few years in his early grade school years but picked up the electric guitar in highschool. He dove into the world of 60’s rock and roll and started up a band! However, life steered him away from the instrument for a while once he began his studies in college and didn’t pick it back up until he began taking classical guitar lessons at age 52. Daniel says,
“Marc Garvin was my teacher in Houston for about 10 years. I love the instrument and was teaching a few students when I began to pursue guitars for my students while overseas. When I realized I could get good guitars for students I found myself importing and selling guitars”
Once Daniel began importing high-quality guitars he connected with the guitar professor at UT Austin, Adam Holzman. Daniel shared,
“It truly was a divine appointment because Adam introduced me to Matt Hinsley. One day Matt asked me if I could supply guitars to schools and I said, “Sure!”. Next thing I know I am providing hundreds of guitars to schools all over the USA. Most of the contacts have come through ACG or by word of mouth from the teachers who come to the Guitar Curriculum training events.”
Daniel is inspired by music education and how it has the power to transform lives,
“There were no opportunities to learn guitar at school when I was growing up. I love helping students with guitars because music changes their lives forever. It is something they can do for the rest of their lives. It is a part of their life that they can share with others. This is a very powerful and positive influence in the lives of young people and I want to be a part of that. Bach famously said that the sole purpose of music is the glory of God. I believe that. And I see it happening when music changes a person’s life. I love helping other people fulfill their needs in finding the guitar for them, and helping students to be involved in music. I never dreamed that I would be doing this at this point in my life, but it is truly a joy.”
The magic that has manifested from the donations of Daniel Baugh and Cálido Guitars in the lives of the young people in our community is truly too massive to measure. We could not be more grateful. Thank you!
Read a story on our Juvenile Justice program here.
Learn more about ACG Education here.
Major Feature Release: Hitchcock’s The Lodger with new score by Joe Williams
We dream of a world where music is here for everyone, connecting us, inspiring us, and bringing joy and meaning wherever it goes. We are having our Dream Big spring fund drive here at ACG and it’s because of our community and supporters that we are able to share stories like this. Click here to learn more about supporting ACG.
We are ecstatic to announce the streaming release, in partnership with Alamo Drafthouse and Criterion, of Alfred Hitchcock’s 1927 silent thriller The Lodger with a lush and evocative ACG-commissioned musical score by our Artistic Director Joe Williams.
Watch The Lodger now, through Alamo On-Demand
A gripping tale of a mysterious lodger, a series of murders, and a beautiful show girl. The Lodger is Alfred Hitchcock’s third film. This 1927 silent classic is the first to introduce his distinct artistic vision exploring themes of voyeurism, ambiguity, violence, and sexuality with Hitchcock’s brilliant cinematography and storytelling. The Lodger also includes Hitchcock’s very first trademark cameo. In this release, you’ll experience The Lodger in a whole new way with Joe Williams’ brilliant 2015 musical score for four guitars and cello, commissioned by Austin Classical Guitar in 2017. Superstar cellist Bion Tsang performs with the international award-winning members of Texas Guitar Quartet in this incredibly special new release. Williams’ new score was recorded by Eric Pearson and Todd Waldron, and mastered by Brad Sayles.
Dive deep into The Lodger with Artistic Director and Composer Joe Williams, ACG’s Executive Director Matt Hinsley, and Founder of the Alamo Drafthouse Tim League, in this featurette!
Dream Big: Springfest at Bedichek Middle with Phil Swasey
We dream of a world where music is here for everyone, connecting us, inspiring us, and bringing joy and meaning wherever it goes. We are having our Dream Big spring fund drive here at ACG and it’s because of our community and supporters that we are able to share stories like this. Click here to learn more about supporting ACG.
Below is a letter from Bedichek Middle School’s Director of Guitar and Mariachi, Phil Swasey, on their most recent performance at their Springfest!
Teaching during a pandemic has challenged many educators to navigate novel and complex issues, ones that still arrive daily in the form of mental health obstacles (teachers and students alike), inequitable outcomes, COVID protocols, when to return to normal program activities, and how to address the impact of separation on our communities.
With the help of some amazing colleagues, Bedichek Middle planned and hosted a community celebration called “Bedichek Springfest”, with the purpose of reconnecting members of our community (families, teachers, PTA, and local businesses). It’s these connections that are vital to a school ecosystem, and ones that have been recently strained.
One major goal of the event was to reconnect with Alumni; students that had gone on after middle school to do incredible things, and bring their successes back to campus. It was an effort not only to celebrate them, but also to provide our current students and teachers with a vision into what our young learners become after middle school.
I spent the early part of the Spring semester reaching out to former guitar students from the last 11 years of the program. The responses that I received when proposing an Alumni Guitar Ensemble were enthusiastic and committed.
Two of the first people I reached out to were Angelica Campbell (Communications Director at ACG), and Rey Rodriguez (Teaching Artist at ACG), and once they were on-board the ensemble really started to take shape. We rehearsed twice in preparation for our performance at Springfest, and those moments together were filled with laughs, goofing around, reminiscing, and most importantly, really beautiful music making. The ensemble itself consisted of siblings (3 pairs), partners, current and former students, and spanned a 12 year age range.
During breaks in the rehearsal we would have structured conversations based on prompts. Answering the question, “What would you go back and tell your middle school self?”, a high school student’s response was, “I would tell myself not to compare myself to others.”.
The evening of the performance was beautiful, the group played well, and so many other students that weren’t able to participate in the ensemble showed up to support and watch. I’m so grateful for all of the students, current and former, that participated.
Below is an excerpt from an 8th graders essay, imagining his first day at college. It’s an amazing testament to the impact that we all have on each other, even when not realizing it.
“I soon realize that college is overwhelming and I have projects already due. I luckily know some people who can help. I go to talk to my teacher, his name is Rey and he tells me about how rough his first day was also. I start to feel better about everything, realizing that I have people to help me get through this.”
– Phil Swasey
Dream Big: A Beautiful Letter to ACG from Ayame Castel
We dream of a world where music is here for everyone, connecting us, inspiring us, and bringing joy and meaning wherever it goes. We are having our Dream Big spring fund drive here at ACG and it’s because of our community and supporters that we are able to share stories like this. Click here to learn more about supporting ACG.
Below is a beautiful letter from graduating senior and ACG Youth Orchestra member, Ayame Castel.
In addition to being a great young guitarist, Ayame is an extraordinary competitive athlete, and she’ll be attending the highly competitive US Naval Academy this fall. We couldn’t be more excited for her, and thankful for our time together.
Dear Austin Classical Guitar,
I can’t believe that it has been five years since I first joined the ACG Youth Orchestra (ACGYO). I’m grateful to look back on the many thrilling experiences over the years that have truly changed me as a musician and as a person. I can’t thank ACG and ACGYO Director, Joe Williams, enough for the many distinct and fulfilling performances in churches, gardens, concert halls, and even movie theaters.
I think the most incredible experience I’ve had as part of the ACGYO was when we had the privilege to tour San Francisco and play in many different venues with musicians of all ages. Not only did we share our music, we also got to explore the culture and landscape of San Francisco such as the Golden Gate Bridge and Muir Woods! Although the past two years have been a challenge, and that is an understatement for many of us, we were still able to come together and perform virtually until finally in person again.
I wouldn’t have experienced what it’s like composing for a large guitar orchestra if it weren’t for ACG and Clarice Assad coming together and making it possible for us. I am so grateful that we were able to perform our composition with Clarice, Mosaic Variations, in person and then finish the season with performing Austin Pictures by Joe Williams in person as part of a huge guitar orchestra.
I would 100% do it all over again for the experiences, the people, and to flex our guitar skills and music to the world. ACGYO has inspired me to take advantage of new opportunities and to connect and make experiences with many people.
Thank you ACG!
Ayame Castel
We asked ACG Artistic Director, Joe Williams, for his thoughts after reading this wonderful letter form Ayame, and here’s what he had to say.
This letter takes me back to Ayame’s first rehearsal. She was there because her teacher, Stephen Krishnan, encouraged she try out. I am so proud of her and the journey she had with us. Ayame transformed from being unsure about the whole thing to being a rock. She became someone I always knew I could count on to lead or support – whatever the group needed. More than anything, it was fun to see her enjoy making music.
Ayame is starting a new journey now as a young adult and as a student in the U.S. Naval Academy. I believe the music she has made with the ACGYO will serve her for years to come and I’m so grateful she shared her presence with us. – Joe Williams
