Tag: Melbourne

Introducing Michael MacManus

Nicole Neal3 Comments

Helloo dear readers!

Well, I have another “Introducing….” for you today. This time it’s the exceptionally talented Melburnian Michael MacManus. Michael is currently a Music Performance Honours student at Melbourne Conservatorium, studying under the great Antony Field and the 2012 winner of the Classical Guitar Society of Victoria’s Solo Guitar Competition.

I’ve had the immense pleasure of witnessing Michael’s development as a player over the last three or four years, and it was clear from the outset that he was a talented, and clearly hard-working, chap. In the last year or so, Michael’s playing has taken on a whole new level of….hmmm….how shall I say this…..awesomeness.

He posted up a video this week of him playing the Sarabande from Bach’s Second Cello Suite and I have to say I was blown away. Such sensitive and refined playing, yet with great expression. A very touching interpretation indeed. Simple and beautiful, as Bach should be.

 

Michael is also seriously dedicated to the classical guitar and its development, with his own growing group of young students of the instrument, and a committed member of the Classical Guitar Society of Victoria committee. He has taken charge of organising and putting together the 2013 CGSV Solo Guitar Competition, due to be held on 2nd November, with some seriously tasty prizes on offer attracting entrants from the far reaches of Australia and some seriously top notch judges for the competition too – the Grigoryan brothers no less!

If you want to know a bit more about the competition head here: http://www.melbourneguitar.com/default.aspx?d=1453447 And Michael is so dedicated, he’s already started work on the 2014 competition.

To find out a bit more about Michael, his playing and some more video and audio excerpts head on over to his website:

http://www.michaelmacmanus.com

Related articles

 

Introducing Rick Alexander

Nicole Neal8 Comments

Today I’d really like to introduce you to a chap by the name of Rick Alexander. Rick is a student of mine (who came to me already a highly proficient guitarist) who also happens to have a fantastic talent for writing music.  Testimony to this is Rick’s new recording (his third) (just finished up last week in fact) with instrumental, nylon string guitar songs that he wrote somewhere between a decade ago and as recently as just a couple of months ago.

Rick’s music (and he had no idea I was writing this blog post today by the way – Hi Rick!) could be described as gentle, pop and folk inflected instrumental songs with lovely, lyrical melodies. Have a listen to a couple of Rick’s tracks here: http://www.rickalexanderguitar.com/newmusic.html

Rick’s axe of choice at the moment is a fantastically resonant (and Aussie-built) Phil Carson-Crickmore classical guitar.

Rick recently had a four gig residency at the Baker Street Studios auditorium in Melbourne (the last gig of which I was honoured to take part in, playing a couple of Rick’s duets with him). Check out a some wee clips of Mr Alexander in action at the Baker Street studios here:

Watch this space for a bit of a Q&A with Rick, more music and further insight into this very talented chap and his work!