7th annual guitar festival gives awards to musical hopefuls

Eastfield held its seventh annual guitar festival this weekend to raise awareness for classical guitar in the local area.

The festival kicked off Friday morning with closed-door competitions for guitar players ranging from middle school to college.

Adjunct guitar professor and festival co-coordinator Eddie Healy was on hand as one of the judges for the competition.

He said he was fortunate to be judging two of the four levels of competition this year.

"I was incredibly impressed by the exceptional talent of many of the up-and-coming guitarists to whom I was exposed for the first time this weekend," Healy said.

Director of the Austin Bella Corda Ensemble and president of the Childbloom Company Kevin Taylor said he thinks the competition is good for the younger musicians.

"If they win first place or place at all it will do a number on their motivation," he said.

Even if a competitor does not win, Taylor said he thinks it is still good for younger musicians because they can look at the winners and say, "I can do that."

The evening of concerts began with the Collin County College One O'Clock Ensemble playing a variety of tunes including the works of Mozart and Eastifield's own Healy.

The festival was a success according to Healy. He said there was a great deal of positive feedback from participants and attendees alike.

"The festival is designed to promote the guitar and create opportunities for guitarists and we achieved both of those objectives handily," he said.

Following the music of the college group, was soloist Raul Olmos from Mexico. Olmos played a South American themed set with music from multiple Latin composers.

There was a 15 minute intermission after the soloist's performance followed by the more unconventional sounds of Flamenco rock group Tequila. Hailing from Middle Tennessee State University, Tequila ended the first evening playing a 45 minute set to a crowd fewer than 50.

Saturday's portion of the performances began with three groups. Middle school and high school students played group and solo pieces to a large crowd in the lower level performance hall of the 'F' Building.

Continuing education youth guitar instructor James Schreffler lead off the performances with a series of duets performed by him and several of his students.

Following Schreffler was the Cross Timbers Youth Orchestra, directed by Sabine Madriguera. Kevin Taylor's Bella Corda Ensemble out of Austin finished the concert. The group played a 25 minute set with music ranging in styles of western-themed love songs to gypsy tunes.

Unknown to Taylor at the time of performance, two of his students won competitions in their divisions earlier in the day.

Ryan Voldstand won first place in the high school portion of the guitar competition and Tyler Rhodes was awarded first prize in the pre-high school division of the event.

Taylor said the group have been playing as a group since the fall and have been averaging a concert every two months. Although appreciative of the set the Bella Corda were allotted, Taylor said he was trying to convince the organizers of the festival to let his group play a full set next year.

Following the youth performance was a quartet of faculty performers from the college. Clare Greer, Eddie Healy, Rachel Loss-Cutler and Randall Nye played in the group. They played a series of music, either written by Nye or arranged by him.

Continuing education instructor Rachel Loss-Cutler said she has been performing once a semester in the weekly recital series on campus, where music students have to come to the concerts in order to gain class credit. She said the festival allowed for a different mindset during the concert.

"It's almost better because no one was forced to be there," she said.

Saturday night began with a night of duos lead off by Marian Mozzi and Jimmy Wilder. Following the guitar duo a flutist joined Mozzi. The night concluded with the sounds of Carlos and Marisa Molina. Mr. Molina played a group of six solo songs before introducing his wife as the vocalist. The duo played an additional eight pieces with guitar and vocals.

Loss-Cutler said the concert done by Mr. and Mrs. Molina was one of her favorite parts of the festival.

"You don't get to hear [classical] guitar and voice together that often," she said.

Loss-Cutler said she also enjoyed the guitar and flute duo. She said the piece played was premiered at the festival and the flutist portion of the song was mostly improvised.

The night concluded with the ceremony of award presentations for the competitors of the previous two days.

The last day of the festival began at 2 p.m. with the UTD Trio lead by Eddie Healy. They played Path to Truth which is a three part song followed by Astor Piazzolla tune.

Following the trio was the Texas Women's University Guitar Ensemble, which consisted of four guitarists and one flutist. The group played two songs, first a duet of guitars followed by a quartet of guitars and the introduction of a flute.

As far as future guitar festivals go there are a few things some of the participants would like to see added.

Healy said being one of the coordinators of the competition for the past two years has given him the opportunity to see the most successful facets of the festival but personally he would like to see more local involvement.

"There is a wealth of classical guitar talent in the DFW area as well as other cities all over Texas, and we have just scratched the surface of using those talents," he said.

Loss-Cutler said the festival is different every year but would like to see more guitar master classes added to the agenda. A master class is a workshop where a professional guitar player will have you play a piece and then show you what you can do to fix mistakes made in that piece.