ACG Blog

This past spring, as part of our season finale, GIVE featuring Pepe Romero, three student quartet groups formed to perform with the guitar legend on The Rosette stage.

Now, one of those ambitious groups is going on an Austin library tour and we could not be more excited to invite you to join us for it! 

The Baker 4, featuring incredible young artists Jianna Zamora, Greg Sonnier, Teddy McCoy, and their wonderful teaching artist, Alex Lew will be having performances at the Carver, Spicewood Springs, Southeast, and Howson branches beginning next week June 25 to July 2! 

Find concert details here. Learn more about ACG Community Centered Art Making here. 

Following their incredible collaboration with a world renown guitar legend, Pepe Romero, the Baker 4 had an ambitious desire and dedication to continue making music together. 

They’re going on tour! They will be visiting four Austin Public Library branches over the next two weeks and we are so pumped to watch it happen. 

The Baker 4 features three incredible guitarists, Jianna Zamora, Greg Sonnier, Teddy McCoy, and ACG Teaching Artist, Alex Lew. 

They met through the ACG Youth Orchestra and were asked to prepare music to be performed alongside Pepe Romero in ACG’s season finale of 2025. In this setting, Alex was a place-holder for Pepe until the concerts took place. He worked with these three young artists deeply and helped shape their musicianship over the course of a year! 

This week we had the opportunity to speak with Alex more about what this experience was like and this is what he had to share with us, 

“I have had the honor of working with these three young artists on a weekly basis with intensive rehearsals that cover a variety of chamber music ideals. Some of the ideals consist of the art of matching tone and dynamics, lining up rhythmically, and making musical decisions that we all enjoy. I have enjoyed hearing the student’s opinions on how a phrase should be shaped and we make musical decisions democratically. To be able to perform in a chamber music setting requires a significant amount of preparation in order to sound as one unit and they would always show up prepared and ready to take the music to the next step! 

Two moments really shine to me when I look back on my experiences with the Baker 4. The first was when I enlisted them to perform at my chamber music recital, which is in partial fulfillment of the Doctor of Musical Arts degree. I remember being on stage with them and feeling completely at ease. We all trust each other’s playing to the degree where we can relax and have fun making music, even in a high pressure situation. I was incredibly proud of this moment and it was truly inspiring to be a part of the group, let alone lead it. 

Another special moment was when we were on the way back from the ACGYO’s West Texas tour. The three of them were sitting in the back of the van and spontaneously decided to compete in the Texas State guitar competition as a trio. In about one or two weeks, they were able to put together a program and perform it in a competition setting with no formal coaching. I was in awe when they ran through their program for me with how together they were and all of the deep musical choices that they incorporated to the piece. They ended up winning second place in the festival!

Our most recent project is to record a selection of music that will be used on the guitar curriculum website. These recordings will give the teachers and students an idea of how the music should sound and be performed regarding the balance of the parts, dynamics, rubato, and other musical characteristics. This repertoire is written in three parts, so the Baker 4 will be the Baker 3 in this session.

I’m really looking forward to playing our quartet music, as that has been a source of joy for me this last year. However, I’m more excited to be able to witness them perform as a trio without me. The growth that I have seen from these young artists has been tremendous in just a year’s time. To be able to play at this level takes an enormous amount of dedication and passion. These aspects are surely to be witnessed in their tour this summer.”

We’re so excited to continue to witness these young musicians perform beautiful music and grow into ambitious and hardworking young adults. We’d love to have you at any of the shows with us! Find details below: 

Wednesday, June 25 at the Carver Branch from 5-6 pm

Thursday, June 26 at the Spicewood Springs Branch from 2-3 pm

Friday, June 27 at the Southeast Branch from 5:30-6:30 pm

Wednesday, July 2 at the Howson Branch from 6-7 pm

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.

At ACG, we believe in the power of music to heal, connect, and transform lives. This mission has guided our work for over a decade, especially through our Music & Healing program, led by ACG’s Carol Jean Mosher Knupp Director of Education and Music & Healing, Travis Marcum. We’ve recently passed making 100 songs in this program! Here’s a beautiful letter from Travis in celebration of this huge milestone: 

I keep you strong. You keep me strong…

It’s a simple sentiment rooted in the idea that everyone needs support, love, and kindness to get through the challenges of being. To me, it’s the recognition that we all experience some chapters of life that present intense hardship and others that bring periods of joy and energy. In the darkness of the lows, I need you. On top of the sunny peaks, I give you my hand.

I Keep You Strong, You Keep Me Strong is a song written ten years ago by a sixteen-year-old mom named Grace for her new baby. It’s now one of over 100 songs that ACG Music and Healing artists have facilitated and written with community members in partnership with over a dozen local hospitals, clinics, and social service organizations. The chorus for Grace’s song has become somewhat of a theme for ACG Music and Healing. It’s why we do the work. It’s the spark that keeps us connected, safe, and strong enough to push through together.

Since 2014, nineteen ACG Music and Healing Artists have spent countless hours with new friends who are navigating things like cancer treatment, mental health diagnoses, addiction, parenthood, and many more. The Artist’s gift is creating a musical pathway for expression. We provide a safe place in song to put intense feelings like joy, pain, despair or loneliness. The participant offers their story, the poetry of their life experience. They make all of the decisions about what they want their song to sound like. And together we recognize the beauty, we all get a little more connected, and we all feel a little better because of it.

As I listen back to each of the 100 songs, I am struck by how precious they are… the individual stories expressed in such a beautiful context. I want to thank every Music and Healing participant for putting your trust in us and making something truly beautiful.

You can listen to our library of Music & Healing songs here.

As we pass ten years and 100 songs at ACG Music & Healing, I’d like to thank all of our friends like you who have believed in us and in the power of music and kindness to do good in the world.

We did this together.

There’s something remarkable about watching music pass through generations. Not just in the notes themselves, but in the way passion, wisdom, and connection are handed down, shaping lives along the way.

This weekend, our season finale will celebrate exactly that. Inspired by our season theme: Give, is the centerpiece of our season that brings together the legendary Pepe Romero, ACG’s Artist-in-Residence, with nine young guitarists from Austin to perform in three quartets where Pepe joins as the fourth member performing music written and performed by the Romero family. 

A year in the making, GIVE is a radiant testament to the spirit of generosity between generations, across cultures, and through music itself. Watch the livestream here.

Support ACG here. 

Every once in a while, a project comes along that feels truly extraordinary; where the power of music, the generosity of mentorship, and the beauty of human connection all shine at once. Our season finale this weekend is one of those projects.

As we look forward to GIVE, the culmination of our 2024–25 season, we had the chance this week to speak with one of the young performers, Paul, and his father, Robert. Two voices on either side of a remarkable journey that has unfolded over the past year.

Paul is one of nine exceptional young guitarists from Austin who have spent the year preparing for this moment: performing alongside the legendary Pepe Romero, ACG’s Artist-in-Residence, in three original guitar quartets.

The Give Quartets feature The Palmer Trio with Paul Devens, Noah Melendrez &  Kian Mitchell The Orpheus Trio: Satvik Chawla, Allen Liu & Brandon Kim, and The Baker 3: Jianna Zamora, Teddy McCoy & Greg Sonnier. 

They were coached by teaching artists Joseph Palmer, Stephen Krishnan & Alex Lew with support from Joe Williams, Travis Marcum & Tony Mariano over the past year but will be replaced with Pepe himself as the fourth member for this weekend’s shows.

For Robert, a lifelong guitarist who’s played for fun since he was seven, watching his son Paul step into an opportunity like this has been deeply meaningful.

“It makes me feel incredibly proud,” he shared, “especially knowing how much he’s put into it; balancing quartet rehearsals, private lessons, and school. The chance to perform with Pepe is definitely the major milestone so far.”

Pepe is, of course, an icon in the classical guitar world, and worked closely with nine of Austin’s most dedicated young guitarists in the fall and again this week in preparation for this weekends concerts. Paul describes the experience as transformative,

“While it has been a lot of work involving weekly rehearsals and extra music to work on, preparing and playing with my quartet has been lots of fun. Seeing our hard work come together to produce beautiful music has been extremely rewarding. 

When we played together with Pepe for the first time, everything clicked in a very satisfying way. Cues weren’t even needed, we simply let the music speak for itself, and all the gestures we intended to make came into focus. 

My favorite thing about this experience by far is the unspoken connection between the musicians. There is an electricity that all members of an ensemble feel when they are truly playing together and listening to the music they are making. That connection is completely unique.”

This weekend’s performances are the culmination of a year-long project rooted in our season theme: Give. It’s a radiant testament to the spirit of generosity, between mentors and students, parents and children, generations and cultures. Not only are these students connecting and sharing music with one of the biggest guitar legends in the world, but the music they’ll be performing comes from the Romero family’s own legacy! Compositions passed down and now passed on.

Robert put it best:

“I’m really looking forward to hearing how beautifully everything comes together! The shows they did with Pepe in the fall were amazing to me, as were the practice performances at the Ruiz library last weekend with their teachers. I know that the shows this weekend with Pepe will be an incredible experience of music and emotion. I know this experience will have a lasting effect on Paul’s musicianship and life more generally. The benefits will last far beyond the shows this weekend.”

Unfortunately, this concert is SOLD OUT. But we will be live-streaming the Saturday, May 3 8pm show! RSVP to watch here. 

In reflecting on our season theme of Give and the many gifts that are present in our community, I recently compiled a list of every new piece of music that ACG has commissioned and supported over the years. 

All together there are over 300 pieces and arrangements totaling over 20 hours of music.  It was staggering to see it written out in one place and I couldn’t help but ask: Why has creating new music been such a big part of our work? 

We’ve made large scale pieces by internationally celebrated composers such as Reena Esmail, Nico Muhly, Graham Reynolds, Clarice Assad, Marek Pasieczny, and Jorge Morel. There are three silent film scores, ambitious chamber music pieces and powerful works with community voices.  

So many friends, near and far, have created new music for us:  Roland Dyens, Celil Refik Kaya, Olga Amelkina Vera, Mark Anthony Cruz, Jurg Kindle, Russell Pinkston, Matthew Lyons, and our own Travis Marcum and Justice Phillips, just to name a few. 

On top of this, our EducationTeam has written and arranged a sizable catalogue of pieces for young guitarists in public schools and our Music & Healing Artists recently finished writing their 100th song.  

When you consider that it requires significant resources to create a new piece of music, and there are plenty of perfectly good pieces already in existence, why is it important that we continue to make new works?

I believe the answer is you. Our community is rich and varied in its experience and is so worthy of expression. A new piece is a manifestation of its place and its time and it helps us recognize and celebrate the significance of life itself. 

A new piece empowers us to ask great and timely questions: Who are we now? What do we want to remember? What is special about our time? How do we want to be? 

And I believe that a new piece is filled with energy and promise. The energy comes from three advocates: the composer who writes the piece, the performers who bring it into being, and the community where it is created. The deeper the connection between all of those involved, the more energy it creates and the more meaning it has to offer. 

Some of my favorite examples of pieces that are filled with energy are: 

• Presence (2023) by ACG Artist in Residence Reena Esmail. The product of a year-long collaboration, the lyrics were co-written by a very special orchestra of guitarists made up of middle school, high school and university students as well as community members. 
• Mosaic Variations (2021) by Clarice Assad was co-created with 50 students from across our city. There are two versions of this piece:  one with Clarice and the students and the other with Jorge Caballero and the Miró Quartet.
• Garden Green (2019) was written by Lullaby Project participant Meg with artists Travis Marcum and Amelia DeVivo. As she thought about meeting her baby for the first time, Meg used the familiar image of a garden as a symbol of growth and peace through the joy and challenges of life. 
• I wrote i/we in collaboration with Travis Marcum in 2017 as reflection on how connected and divided we are. It features the voices and stories of refugees settling in Austin at that time. We revisited the work with ARCOS Dance during the pandemic and created I/WE 2020 with the original live recording and ARCOS’ exquisite choreography and videography.

This, as they say, is the tip of the iceberg. This library of music is in turn beautiful, fun, heartbreaking, and riveting and it is steadily becoming a collection that reflects our time and who we are.

With gratitude,

Dr. Joe Williams III, Artistic Director

We dream of a world where music is here for everyone, connecting us, inspiring us, and bringing joy and meaning wherever it goes. 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.

As we reflect on our 2024–25 season, GIVE, we’re filled with gratitude for the many extraordinary moments and gifts we’ve shared with our community. One memory, in particular, stands out. Not just because it was dazzling and ambitious, but because it represented something profoundly full circle! 

This past February, two very special projects happened simultaneously, each highlighting the extraordinary journey of young people we met through our education programs, from their very first notes to taking the stage as professional artists and composers.

On one side of town, in partnership with our friends at Austin Chamber Music Center, we presented a brand-new live score for the 1925 silent film classic The Phantom of the Opera, performed alongside Lon Chaney’s haunting portrayal of the masked figure lurking beneath the Paris Opera House. The breathtaking new score was written by Matthew Lyons, an Austin-based composer and guitarist who first crossed our path through ACG’s work with AISD at Anderson High School; back before we were really established in the school district! 

Now, years later, Matthew returned to ACG as a professional artist, leading a dream team of performers—his Moontower Guitar Duo partner Stephen Krishnan, violinist Sandy Yamamoto, and cellist Annie Jacobs-Perkins—through 90 minutes of heart-pounding, live-performed music that breathed fresh life into a cinematic masterpiece.

Meanwhile, another chapter of someone’s musical story was being written. This one at the very beginning of its arc! 

Bowie High School senior Besa Carney, a longtime student in our education programs, was preparing to debut her very first guitar duet composition as part of our play! series. She spent weeks working with our Director of Education, Travis Marcum, and world renown guitarist Randall Avers, on one of her very early compositions in her career which she later got to perform with Randy by her side on stage! 

We had the pleasure of speaking with both Matthew and Besa!

Being a part of this creative ecosystem has been such a privilege and has shaped the way that I view artistic “success”. Being successful is often associated with quantitative measures – how many concerts you play, how many views your videos have, how many followers you have, how many awards you’ve won, etc. I’ve learned through working with ACG over the years that a more meaningful definition of success as a musician can be the depth of creative connections you make over time. There’s something special about getting to build meaningfully on previous projects, establishing a rapport with more and more people in your community while you witness it grow at the same time, and knowing that what you’ve created or helped create is truly “of a place”. Having a sense of home as an artist is vital, an ACG has become that home for me.”

Diving into the massive project that was Phantom of the Opera, Matthew shared a beautiful statement about the process of creating that gorgeous composition, 

“Writing 90 minutes of music over a year to be performed live with a film felt like a marathon. Although it seemed like I had plenty of time when Joe proposed the idea in February 2024, I began writing as soon as I could because I knew that it would take hundreds of hours to create something of that scope. The silver lining to that constant pressure over a long period of time was that I didn’t have the usual opportunity to second-guess my work – if I wasn’t entirely happy with a section, I just had to move on and come back to it if I had time. This forced me to trust my instinct more, and in fact having more material to work with sooner gave me more time to see how it all connected at a larger scale. Since I was writing music for a well established film, much was already decided for me. Factors such as pacing, mood, and character development were already inherent in the movie, and it was my job to amplify what was already working!

A challenge to scoring a silent film in general is that the music – being the only sonic element – ends up having an outsized role compared to contemporary film scoring. Acting from the silent film era tends to have exaggerated gestures and facial expressions to make up for the lack of audible dialogue, and it’s hard to know when these gestures are begging for music to accompany them – almost as a duet partner – or when it’s better to let the music percolate in the background at the larger service of the entire scene.

Since people already have the option of watching The Phantom in many different formats, I felt emboldened to write something completely different from what they might expect, although it was difficult to resist the temptation to borrow ideas from these other soundtracks! Ultimately, the great asset of this project was that performing the score live added a dimension to the experience that wouldn’t be possible otherwise. 

The week of the performances made me realize what an incredible feat of human coordination was required to make this project happen. It was a true honor to watch such talented humans work together to make this insane tightrope-walk of a concert actually work somehow, from the performers to the tech crew. 

The last thing I’ll mention is how fun it was to play melodica on stage with Stephen (a melodica is a keyboard-like instrument that you blow into with a mouthpiece or tube – kind of sounds like an accordion but a lot easier to play). I wasn’t sure how I’d handle playing under pressure on an instrument I had just started playing several months before, but it ended up being one of the funnest parts!”

We asked what kind of advice would Matthew, now as a professional musician and composer, give to someone at the beginning of their journey, like Besa. Here’s what he shared: 

“There are so many things to say, so I’ll make a list:

Write music that is true to yourself. Don’t worry about trying to impress people – there will always be people who love what you write, and people who don’t. In the end, the most impressive music is that which sounds authentic, and if you write for yourself, it will be. Lean strongly into your influences and learn as much as you can from the music you love. Don’t be afraid to let those influences show in your music. Over time, your individual voice will diffuse throughout your work the way a drop of dye can color an entire glass of water.

Don’t let composing be an isolated activity. Share your work with as many people as possible and try to work directly with the musician(s) who will play your music. This is an incredible way to sharpen your skills and make lifelong connections. As soon as you can, find those few people you trust most to give you supportive and honest feedback, and lean on them when you need advice or affirmation (we all do). Be your peers’ biggest fan. When you show people genuine support, it finds its way back to you.

Identify your artistic strengths and nurture them. Don’t define yourself by your perceived weaknesses. Composing is a lot like digging for gold – you have to sift through a lot of dirt to get to the good stuff. The sooner you get started and the longer you work, the closer you get to finding those few truly good ideas, so learn to appreciate your discarded ideas as a necessary part of the process. Having a compelling artistic voice comes from living life fully. Strike a balance between doing those things that make you a better artist and those things that make you more than just an artist, because sometimes they are one and the same. In the end, being a composer is more a constant action than a state of being. You might only ever feel like a “composer” when you’re composing, and that’s okay!

And finally, take time to feel proud of your work!”

Besa’s composition journey started at a very young age, beginning in 6th grade! She dives deeper, 

“I initially composed for the first time in 6th grade when my mom’s birthday was coming up and I didn’t have any money, so I made her a 8 measure piano song. It was really bad, but my mom said she loved it. Then towards the end of middle school I started composing more, and I really liked it!

I have performed and gotten my compositions performed several times, but the one I composed this year was my first guitar duet piece.”

In late February, as part of our play! series, Besa performed this duo piece with Randall Avers! She shares more about the experience, 

“Playing with Randy was incredible because even though his part was super hard, he made it sound easy.

Getting to work with Randy was such an amazing opportunity! It was really touching to hear about his life journey that occurred this past year, and how he used his experiences to create music with the people he cares most about. He is such a talented musician and an incredibly nice person, and I am very lucky that I got to work with him on my duet piece.”

Watch their performance of Ancestor by Besa Carney, here: 

Looking forward, Besa plans to attend the University of Texas at Austin to major in composition in the Fall! We’re so pumped to see what she does next!

We’re so grateful to connect with such talented people in our community and continue to create beautiful music and experiences with them. And we look forward to sharing more stories like these with you! 

Learn more about ACG Education and the work we do here. Support ACG Education here.