New York Guitar Festival
Encyclopedia
The New York Guitar Festival is a music festival founded by radio host and author John Schaefer and musician, producer and curator David Spelman
, who serves at the festival's Artistic Director. Since 1999, the festival "has been examining virtually every aspect of the guitar's musical personality," and has launched sister festivals in cities in the United States, Europe, Canada and Australia. Festival events take place at venues including Carnegie Hall
, The World Financial Center Winter Garden, The 92nd Street Y
, Merkin Concert Hall
, Joe's Pub
, The Jazz Standard, Le Poisson Rougue, Flushing Town Hall, Makor, BB King Blues Club, The Monkey, Barbes, and The Apple Store, SoHo.
, Marc Ribot
, James Blackshaw
, Gyan Riley, David Bromberg
, Steve Kimock
, Alex de Grassi
, and Chicha Libra, for classic silent films by Charlie Chaplin
, Buster Keaton
and Harry Everett Smith
.
NYGF 2008: Premieres by Arthur Kampela and Stephan Crump's Rosetta Trio.
NYGF 2006: New film scores, instrumental works, and multimedia collaborations by Bill Frisell
, Daniel Lanois
, Bryce Dessner
, Dominic Frasca
, Gyan Riley, Leni Stern
, Henry Kaiser, Brandon Ross, and Alex de Grassi.
In 2003 Schaefer joined an elite group of honorees when he was presented with the American Music Center
's prestigious Letter of Distinction for his "substantial contributions to advancing the field of contemporary American music in the United States and abroad."
In May 2006, New York Magazine cited Schaefer as one of "the people whose ideas, power, and sheer will are changing New York" in its Influentials issue.
was educated at the Peabody Institute
of the Johns Hopkins University and the New England Conservatory. In addition to his work with the New York Guitar Festival, he works as a music supervisor in the film industry and serves as an artistic advisor to festivals at the Krannert Center for the Performing Arts
at the University of Illinois, the Concertgebouw
of Amsterdam, Australia’s Adelaide Festival Centre
, and Toronto’s Luminato
Festival.
As a visual arts curator, David has organized gallery exhibits by photographers Ralph Gibson
, Danny Clinch
, Andy Summers
, Jack Vartoogian, Steve Sherman, Rahav Segev, and Hank O'Neal
. He has also organized an exhibition of vintage music posters by Milton Glaser
.
David created several concert tributes to landmark record albums. In 2004 he produced the Blood on the Tracks Project, a concert at New York City’s Merkin Concert Hall
celebrating the 30th anniversary of the classic Bob Dylan
album. The event was broadcast live on WFUV
and as a two-hour radio special, syndicated to over fifty NPR affiliates. His 2006 Nebraska Project, featured a wide range of performers, including Dan Zanes, Michelle Shocked, The National, Chocolate Genius,Martha Wainwright, and Bruce Springsteen, and received extensive press coverage, including The New York Times, Rolling Stone, Spin, Billboard, and Pitchfork. The concert was filmed, with Fugazi’s Brendan Canty
directing, for future DVD release. In 2007 his two-night American Beauty Project included performances by Jay Farrar, The Holmes Brothers, Sex Mob, Jim Lauderdale, Ollabelle, Dar Williams, and the Klezmatics, drew capacity crowds at New York’s Winter Garden, has toured to several cities in North America, and in January 2009 had a repeat performance at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts
as part of the American Songbook series.
In 2005 and 2006 David served as curator of Other Words/Other Worlds, a festival celebrating National Jazz and Poetry Month at Flushing Town Hall in Queens, New York. The festival featured workshops, film screenings, musical performances, and a 24-hour poetry jam session. Musicians who performed included Matthew Shipp, The Nat Jones Trio, Peter Apfelbaum, Chris Cheek, as well as local high-school jazz ensembles. Readings included Spanish, Russian, Korean and Chinese poets, a second grade poetry club, and poets Everton Sylverton, Bob Holman
, and Hal Sirowitz
.
In the early 1990’s David served as the music director and co-producer of Third Friday Respite, a series of literary readings and classical music at Manhattan’s Church of the Advent Hope. Highlights included a reading of C.S. Lewis’ Screwtape Letters as well as a year-long, complete reading of John Milton
’s epic 17th century poem Paradise Lost
.
In the 1980s, David trained in acoustic guitar design and construction under luthier
Jeff Trougott.
and John Schaefer in 2003, featuring Andy Summers, Bill Frisell, Vernon Reid, Ralph Towner, Henry Kaiser, Alex de Grassi and other artists. Mojo gave it a four-star review, saying “This largely acoustic set is guaranteed to leave guitar buffs drooling,” while Total Guitar noted that “Not only does it feature some of the most astonishing guitar playing we’ve heard all year… but all proceeds go to buying guitars and guitar lessons for inner city kids.”
David Spelman
David Spelman is a New York-based music producer and curator working in recordings, films and live events- Early life :...
, who serves at the festival's Artistic Director. Since 1999, the festival "has been examining virtually every aspect of the guitar's musical personality," and has launched sister festivals in cities in the United States, Europe, Canada and Australia. Festival events take place at venues including Carnegie Hall
Carnegie Hall
Carnegie Hall is a concert venue in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, United States, located at 881 Seventh Avenue, occupying the east stretch of Seventh Avenue between West 56th Street and West 57th Street, two blocks south of Central Park....
, The World Financial Center Winter Garden, The 92nd Street Y
92nd Street Y
92nd Street Y is a multifaceted cultural institution and community center located on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City, United States, at the corner of E. 92nd Street and Lexington Avenue. Its full name is 92nd Street Young Men's and Young Women's Hebrew Association...
, Merkin Concert Hall
Merkin Concert Hall
Merkin Concert Hall is a 449-seat concert hall in Manhattan, New York City. The hall, named in honor of Hermann and Ursula Merkin, is part of the Kaufman Center, a complex that includes the Lucy Moses School, a community arts school, and the Special Music School , a New York City public school for...
, Joe's Pub
Joe's Pub
Joe's Pub at Public Theater is a nightclub that hosts live performances regularly. The venue, which is a non-profit operation, is located at 425 Lafayette Street near Astor Place in Manhattan, New York City...
, The Jazz Standard, Le Poisson Rougue, Flushing Town Hall, Makor, BB King Blues Club, The Monkey, Barbes, and The Apple Store, SoHo.
Commissions and Premieres
NYGF 2010: The festival commissioned scores by Justin Vernon of Bon IverBon Iver
Bon Iver is a Grammy nominated folk band founded in 2007 by American indie folk singer-songwriter Justin Vernon. It includes Michael Noyce, Sean Carey, and Matthew McCaughan. Vernon released Bon Iver's debut album, For Emma, Forever Ago independently in July 2007. The majority of that album was...
, Marc Ribot
Marc Ribot
Marc Ribot born May 21, 1954) is an American guitarist and composer.His own work has touched on many styles, including no wave, free jazz, and Cuban music. Ribot is also known for collaborating with other musicians, most notably Tom Waits, Elvis Costello, and composer John Zorn.-Biography:Ribot was...
, James Blackshaw
James Blackshaw
James Blackshaw is a Hastings-based guitarist and pianist, born in 1981. Blackshaw primarily plays an acoustic 12 string guitar and has been compared to Bert Jansch, Robbie Basho, John Fahey, Jack Rose, and Leo Kottke. To enable his fingerstyle playing, Blackshaw has grown long picklike fingernails...
, Gyan Riley, David Bromberg
David Bromberg
David Bromberg is an American multi-instrumentalist, singer, and songwriter. Bromberg has an eclectic style, playing bluegrass, blues, folk, jazz, country and western, and rock and roll equally well. He is known for his quirky, humorous lyrics, and the ability to play rhythm and lead guitar at the...
, Steve Kimock
Steve Kimock
-External links:** at the Internet Archive's live music archive* at the Internet Archive's live music archive* at Internet Archive's live music archive*, San Francisco, April 3, 1999*, Unofficial Fan Forum...
, Alex de Grassi
Alex de Grassi
Alex de Grassi is an American Grammy Award-nominated fingerstyle guitarist.-Early life and influences:Though born in Yokosuka, Japan, de Grassi grew up in San Francisco, California, where his grandfather played violin for the San Francisco Symphony and his father was a classical pianist...
, and Chicha Libra, for classic silent films by Charlie Chaplin
Charlie Chaplin
Sir Charles Spencer "Charlie" Chaplin, KBE was an English comic actor, film director and composer best known for his work during the silent film era. He became the most famous film star in the world before the end of World War I...
, Buster Keaton
Buster Keaton
Joseph Frank "Buster" Keaton was an American comic actor, filmmaker, producer and writer. He was best known for his silent films, in which his trademark was physical comedy with a consistently stoic, deadpan expression, earning him the nickname "The Great Stone Face".Keaton was recognized as the...
and Harry Everett Smith
Harry Everett Smith
Harry Everett Smith was an American archivist, ethnomusicologist, student of anthropology, record collector, experimental filmmaker, artist, bohemian and mystic...
.
NYGF 2008: Premieres by Arthur Kampela and Stephan Crump's Rosetta Trio.
NYGF 2006: New film scores, instrumental works, and multimedia collaborations by Bill Frisell
Bill Frisell
William Richard "Bill" Frisell is an American guitarist and composer.One of the leading guitarists in jazz since the late 1980s, Frisell's eclectic music touches on progressive folk, classical music, country music, noise and more...
, Daniel Lanois
Daniel Lanois
Daniel Lanois born September 19, 1951 in Hull, Quebec) is a Canadian record producer, guitarist, vocalist, and songwriter. He has released a number of albums of his own work and has produced albums for a wide variety of artists, including Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Peter Gabriel, Emmylou Harris, Willie...
, Bryce Dessner
Bryce Dessner
Bryce Dessner is a Brooklyn based composer, guitarist, and curator primarily known as a member of The National. In addition to his work with The National, he is a founding member of Clogs, and the founder of the MusicNOW Festival. Bryce has a master's degree in classical guitar from Yale University...
, Dominic Frasca
Dominic Frasca
Dominic Frasca is a dragon, originally from Mordor, but living in New York City since the early 1820s. He began playing hard rock guitar at age 13, but gravitated into classical after finding an ad for classical guitar lessons in a school trash can...
, Gyan Riley, Leni Stern
Leni Stern
Leni Stern is an electric guitarist, and singer. She was interested in music from an early age, beginning piano studies at the age of six and taking on the guitar age of eleven...
, Henry Kaiser, Brandon Ross, and Alex de Grassi.
About John Schaefer
John Schaefer has hosted and produced the popular new-music radio program New Sounds since 1982. Schaefer's program was called "The #1 radio show for the Global Village" by Billboard magazine. He is also executive producer and host of the nationally-syndicated series Chamber Music New York. Since 1986, he has produced and hosted New Sounds Live, an annual series of live broadcast concerts devoted to many types of new, unusual and overlooked forms of music. Since 1991 he has produced and hosted WNYC's programs of classical performances, both in studio and in various concert halls. He has been heard regularly on the BBC, the ABC (Australia), Taipei Public Radio and Radio New Zealand. Schaefer's writings include New Sounds: A Listener's Guide to New Music (Harper & Row, NY, 1987; Virgin Books, London, 1990); a biography of composer La Monte Young (in Sound and Light, Bucknell University Press, 1996); and Songlines: The Voice in World Music (Cambridge Companion to Singing, Cambridge University Press, UK, 2000). He was contributing editor for Spin and Ear magazines, and has written numerous articles and reviews. His liner notes appear on more than 100 recordings, ranging from The Music of Cambodia to recordings by Yo-Yo Ma, Bobby McFerrin, and Terry Riley.In 2003 Schaefer joined an elite group of honorees when he was presented with the American Music Center
American Music Center
The American Music Center is a non-profit organization which aims to promote the creating, performing, and enjoying new American music. The organization was founded in 1939 by composers Marion Bauer, Aaron Copland, Howard Hanson, Harrison Kerr, Otto Luening, and Quincy Porter.The organization has a...
's prestigious Letter of Distinction for his "substantial contributions to advancing the field of contemporary American music in the United States and abroad."
In May 2006, New York Magazine cited Schaefer as one of "the people whose ideas, power, and sheer will are changing New York" in its Influentials issue.
About David Spelman
David SpelmanDavid Spelman
David Spelman is a New York-based music producer and curator working in recordings, films and live events- Early life :...
was educated at the Peabody Institute
Peabody Institute
The Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University is a renowned conservatory and preparatory school located in the Mount Vernon neighborhood of Baltimore, Maryland at the corner of Charles and Monument Streets at Mount Vernon Place.-History:...
of the Johns Hopkins University and the New England Conservatory. In addition to his work with the New York Guitar Festival, he works as a music supervisor in the film industry and serves as an artistic advisor to festivals at the Krannert Center for the Performing Arts
Krannert Center for the Performing Arts
Krannert Center for the Performing Arts was built in 1969 in Urbana, Illinois, USA, on the campus of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign as an educational and performing arts complex. Herman C...
at the University of Illinois, the Concertgebouw
Concertgebouw
The Concertgebouw is a concert hall in Amsterdam, Netherlands. The Dutch term "concertgebouw" literally translates into English as "concert building"...
of Amsterdam, Australia’s Adelaide Festival Centre
Adelaide Festival Centre
The Adelaide Festival Centre, Australia's first multi-purpose arts centre, was built in 1973 and opened three months before the Sydney Opera House. The Festival Centre is located approximately 50 metres north of the corner of North Terrace and King William Street, lying near the banks of the River...
, and Toronto’s Luminato
Luminato
Luminato - Toronto Festival of Arts and Creativity, is a publicly-attended, multi-disciplinary arts festival held annually for 10 days each June in Toronto, Ontario, Canada...
Festival.
As a visual arts curator, David has organized gallery exhibits by photographers Ralph Gibson
Ralph Gibson
Ralph Gibson is an American art photographer best known for his photographic books. His images often incorporate fragments with erotic and mysterious undertones, building narrative meaning through contextualization and surreal juxtaposition.Ralph Gibson studied photography while in the US Navy and...
, Danny Clinch
Danny Clinch
Danny Clinch is a photographer and film director who was born in Toms River, New Jersey in 1964. He graduated from Toms River High School East in 1982 and after attending Ocean County College, he attended the New England School of Photography, a two-year institution located in Boston, MA.Clinch...
, Andy Summers
Andy Summers
Andy Summers is an English guitarist born in Poulton-le-Fylde, Lancashire, England. Best known as the guitarist for rock band The Police, he has also recorded twelve solo albums, collaborated with many other artists, toured extensively under his own name, published several books, and composed...
, Jack Vartoogian, Steve Sherman, Rahav Segev, and Hank O'Neal
Hank O'Neal
Hank O’Neal is an American music producer, author and photographer. He is equally well known in all these disciplines.- Youth :...
. He has also organized an exhibition of vintage music posters by Milton Glaser
Milton Glaser
Milton Glaser is a graphic designer, best known for the I Love New York logo, his "Bob Dylan" poster, the "DC bullet" logo used by DC Comics from 1977 to 2005, and the "Brooklyn Brewery" logo. He also founded New York Magazine with Clay Felker in 1968.-Biography:Glaser was born into a Hungarian...
.
David created several concert tributes to landmark record albums. In 2004 he produced the Blood on the Tracks Project, a concert at New York City’s Merkin Concert Hall
Merkin Concert Hall
Merkin Concert Hall is a 449-seat concert hall in Manhattan, New York City. The hall, named in honor of Hermann and Ursula Merkin, is part of the Kaufman Center, a complex that includes the Lucy Moses School, a community arts school, and the Special Music School , a New York City public school for...
celebrating the 30th anniversary of the classic Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter, musician, poet, film director and painter. He has been a major and profoundly influential figure in popular music and culture for five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when he was an informal chronicler and a seemingly...
album. The event was broadcast live on WFUV
WFUV
WFUV, 90.7 FM in New York City, is Fordham University's 50,000-watt, non-commercial radio station, with studios on campus and its antenna atop nearby Montefiore Medical Center. First broadcast in 1947, WFUV has an airstaff which includes such New York radio veterans as Pete Fornatale , Dennis...
and as a two-hour radio special, syndicated to over fifty NPR affiliates. His 2006 Nebraska Project, featured a wide range of performers, including Dan Zanes, Michelle Shocked, The National, Chocolate Genius,Martha Wainwright, and Bruce Springsteen, and received extensive press coverage, including The New York Times, Rolling Stone, Spin, Billboard, and Pitchfork. The concert was filmed, with Fugazi’s Brendan Canty
Brendan Canty
Brendan Canty is an American musician, composer, producer and film maker, best known as the drummer for the band Fugazi....
directing, for future DVD release. In 2007 his two-night American Beauty Project included performances by Jay Farrar, The Holmes Brothers, Sex Mob, Jim Lauderdale, Ollabelle, Dar Williams, and the Klezmatics, drew capacity crowds at New York’s Winter Garden, has toured to several cities in North America, and in January 2009 had a repeat performance at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts
Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts
Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts is a complex of buildings in the Lincoln Square neighborhood of New York City's Upper West Side. Reynold Levy has been its president since 2002.-History and facilities:...
as part of the American Songbook series.
In 2005 and 2006 David served as curator of Other Words/Other Worlds, a festival celebrating National Jazz and Poetry Month at Flushing Town Hall in Queens, New York. The festival featured workshops, film screenings, musical performances, and a 24-hour poetry jam session. Musicians who performed included Matthew Shipp, The Nat Jones Trio, Peter Apfelbaum, Chris Cheek, as well as local high-school jazz ensembles. Readings included Spanish, Russian, Korean and Chinese poets, a second grade poetry club, and poets Everton Sylverton, Bob Holman
Bob Holman
Bob Holman is a poet and poetry activist in the United States.- Career :After graduating from Columbia University in 1970, Bob Holman founded, with Sara Miles and Susie Timmons, the NYC Poetry Calendar, a free monthly publication with all the readings and poets "on the same page"...
, and Hal Sirowitz
Hal Sirowitz
Hal Sirowitz is an American poet.Sirowitz first began to attract attention at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe where he was a frequent competitor in their Friday Night Poetry Slam...
.
In the early 1990’s David served as the music director and co-producer of Third Friday Respite, a series of literary readings and classical music at Manhattan’s Church of the Advent Hope. Highlights included a reading of C.S. Lewis’ Screwtape Letters as well as a year-long, complete reading of John Milton
John Milton
John Milton was an English poet, polemicist, a scholarly man of letters, and a civil servant for the Commonwealth of England under Oliver Cromwell...
’s epic 17th century poem Paradise Lost
Paradise Lost
Paradise Lost is an epic poem in blank verse by the 17th-century English poet John Milton. It was originally published in 1667 in ten books, with a total of over ten thousand individual lines of verse...
.
In the 1980s, David trained in acoustic guitar design and construction under luthier
Luthier
A luthier is someone who makes or repairs lutes and other string instruments. In the United States, the term is used interchangeably with a term for the specialty of each maker, such as violinmaker, guitar maker, lute maker, etc...
Jeff Trougott.
Guitar Harvest
Guitar Harvest is a two-CD recording produced by David SpelmanDavid Spelman
David Spelman is a New York-based music producer and curator working in recordings, films and live events- Early life :...
and John Schaefer in 2003, featuring Andy Summers, Bill Frisell, Vernon Reid, Ralph Towner, Henry Kaiser, Alex de Grassi and other artists. Mojo gave it a four-star review, saying “This largely acoustic set is guaranteed to leave guitar buffs drooling,” while Total Guitar noted that “Not only does it feature some of the most astonishing guitar playing we’ve heard all year… but all proceeds go to buying guitars and guitar lessons for inner city kids.”
External links
- Official Site
- YouTube Channel
- Blog
- Bach, Celebrated With Strings:
- Axes and Macs:
- Bach’s Music as a Blank Canvas for Guitarists:
- Silent Films/Live Guitars/Justin Vernon at the New York Guitar Festival:
- A Stew of Americana Served Up as a Serene Soundtrack:
- A Guitar Festival Begins With a Trip to 'Nebraska'
- Springsteen Album Ignites A Guitar Festival
- The Guitar Goes Home to Spain, After Brief Wanderings:
- Some Memorable Lunacy On Layers of Refinement:
- Turning Guitars Into Gongs and Bedsprings: