Get excited! It’s the Adelaide International Guitar Festival!! Woop!

Australian International Guitar Festival — Get yourself over to Radelaide! Photo credit: badjonni

Good morning! Firstly, before I launch into today’s post I have uploaded a new podcast for you: Do you really know what you know?

As always you can find these over on the Podcasts page.

Right. On with today’s post and it’s time to get excited people! Well, it is if you’re a music lover and general guitar nut and you happen to be in the capital of South Australia next weekend. Yes, that’s right it’s time for the Adelaide International Guitar Festival. Woop woop!

The Adelaide International Guitar Festival (or AIGF for short, because those are long words to keep typing. Or not. Just me being lazy…..) runs over four days from Thursday 9th to Sunday 12th August, and is a veritable smorgasbord of guitaristic adventures.

If your passion involves things with six strings (or even four, or seven or more) then it sounds as if this will be the event for you. The event caters not just for the classical guitar crowd, but will feature a plethora of exciting Australian and international talent in jazz, blues, folk, swing, bluegrass, flamenco and rock. How could you not get excited!

This will be the fourth running of the AIGF, and features for the second time our very own Slava Grigoryan as Artistic Director for the festival. Slava has managed to use his considerable influence to pull together an amazing line-up of musicians, including:

You can experience these artists across a number of formats too, ranging from full-on concerts to more intimate late night sessions, from masterclasses to workshops.

If that weren’t enough there will also be opportunities to meet some of the finest guitar makers Australia has to offer (including Redgate and Caldersmith) and opportunities to test out the credit card limit with guitars and goodies galore on offer on the trade stands.

The Classical Guitar Society of Victoria, I’m also very pleased and excited to say, will be presenting its “Segovia on Toast” concert-cum-presentation session to the Adelaide audience, featuring performance from Slava himself. Lucky you Adelaide!

And of course, no discerning festival is complete without a bit of a competition is it? The AIGF is no different, with initial selection rounds having been carried out several months ago. The top prize in this year’s competition will see the winner scoop $10,000 and a Jim Redgate guitar valued at $16,000. Ooooh!

This year will be particularly exciting with some very hot, upcoming talent being represented, including none other than Melbourne’s Dan Nistico, Evan Hopkins and Ziggy Johnston. As is the nature of these things there can only be one real winner of the competition, but I am sure that these three lads will do fantastically well whatever the competition outcome. Good luck!

If you want to head along, or want to find out a bit more about the event go to: www.adelaideguitarfestival.com.au

For those of you unable to head along here are some videos of some of the featured artists to keep you entertained…..