GFA22 Keynote
IGRC Deputy Director Milton Mermikides gave the Guitar Foundation of America Keynote in June 2022. Watch it here
Katalin Koltai at Royal Festival Hall
IGRC PGR, Katalin Koltai is featured soloist with the Philharmonia Orchestra Chamber Players at the Royal Festival Hall: https://www.southbankcentre.co.uk/whats-on/classical-music/philharmonia-chamber-players-tango
Katalin Koltai gave lecture-recital,’New soundscapes on the Ligeti Guitar: Bartók, Chopin, Kurtág and Mulvey’ at the Guitar Foundation of America 2022 Convention
AbstractThis lecture-recital explores a new world of guitar sonorities through novel arrangements; Chopin: Berceuse Op. 57, Saariaho: Nocturne and Kurtág: Ligatura Y performed on a new instrument prototype, the ‘Ligeti Guitar’.In collaboration with the Altamira Guitar Foundation, Hanson Yao and Oren Myers, the ‘Ligeti guitar’ was developed in 2021. The new prototype integrates an adjustable magnet capo system into a transformed fretboard. Koltai designed the magnet capo system originally as a new set of partial capos (2018-2020), also presented in…
Roots – Dimitris Soukaras on Naxos
IGRC PGR Dimitrios Soukaras has released ‘Roots’ on Naxos CD. The music in this programme covers a spectrum of genres that have flourished in Greece in recent years, from jazz to contemporary avant-garde. These have all had a strong impact on guitarist Dimitris Soukaras’s development as an artist, and in making this recording he took the opportunity to invite some of Greece’s leading composers to write for his instrument for the first time. All works are world premiere recordings.
IGRC Conference in Classical Guitar Magazine
Katalin Koltai’s article ‘Breaking the Matrix: Transcribing Bartók and Ligeti for the Guitar Using a New Capo System’ published by Soundboard Scholar
Abstract This paper demonstrates new transcriptions for the guitar of four piano pieces from the twentieth century: “The Night’s Music” from Bartók’s suite Out of Doors and Ligeti’s Musica ricercata, nos. 1, 2, and 7. The transcriptions deploy various newly invented single- and double-string magnet capos: I describe their design and, drawing on the work of De Souza, explain how their use transforms the affordances of the fretboard. In combination with scordaturas, the capos can be used to generate a series of radically…
Katalin Koltai gave lecture-recital,’BREAKING THE MATRIX’ at Guitar Foundation of America (GFA) Convention on 24 June 2020
Watch it here:
2019 International Guitar Conference Hong Kong
The IGRC Conference took place at the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts, 1 Gloucester Road, Wanchai, Hong Kong. The Conference was held alongside the Hong Kong Academy of Performing Arts’ International Guitar Forum, which will focus on 19th Century Performance Practice, and the Altamira Hong Kong Guitar Symposium and Competition. Keynote speakers and performers Professor Steve Goss, Professor Adrian Walter, Dr Milton Mermikides, Dr James Westbrook, Dr Jonathan Leathwood, and Dr Stanley Yates. The International Forum featured keynote presentations from Professor Clive Brown and…
2018 IGRC Jazz Guitar Research Day
A day of panels, lectures, and recitals, exploring the history, craft, and future of jazz guitar at the University of Surrey. Speakers include Dr Tom Williams, John Wheatcroft, Nigel Price, Dr Kate Lewis, James Dean, Mike Outram, Dr John McGrath, Dr Milton Mermikides and Ant Law
2016 International Guitar Research
March 2016 – International Guitar Research Conference Some of the most distinguished and highly regarded scholars and musicians from around the world gathered for this major international conference featuring six public concerts, four keynote lectures, and over 50 lecture-recitals and academic papers. There was a conference installation in the Lewis Elton Art Gallery and delegates had the chance to try the latest Moog guitars in the project room. Visitors were also able to visit the Maurice J Summerfield Collection which…