Monday, June 27, 2011

2011 Salmanca Classical Guitar Festival

Hi there, this is Thomas Offermann from the 1st Certamen Internacional de Guitarra Clásica Heitor Villa-Lobos! A few hours ago the first round with 39 applicants ended.

The level of the competition – even of the first round – is incredibly high, and the Jury had to eliminate a lot of wonderful players all of us would have loved to hear in the second round. But after a very good and long discussion we agreed to only let those competitors pass to the semifinal who have a real chance to finally end up as finalists or even winners of this competition:

Marko Topchyi
Marlon Titre
Noriyuki Masuda
Rafael Aguirre
Rovshan Mamedkuliev
Tal Hurwitz
Alejandro Córdova

This will be a very tough semifinal!

Sometimes it is really hard to work as a juror, ending up with cruel decisions; and this morning was like that. Some of those who couldn’t pass will with no doubt win other competitions! In the end the Jury, consisting of Hugo Geller, Ernesto Bitetti, Carles Trepat, Luis Paulo Horta and me, tried to do a very honest job.

Salamanca is a fantastic place for a competition of this prominence: with about 150.000 inhabitants, situated not far from the Portuguese border in Spain, Salamanca has a first rank university and is a vivid and attractive place to visit and to stay.

Prof. Thomas Offermann
D'Addario Artist Relations












Villa-Lobos Concierto performance












Thomas & D'Addario artist Rafael Aguirre












































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