An array of culture and style, the Guitar Festival was a success. PHOTO CREDIT: Eddie Mefli | Staff Photographer
Featuring a plethora of songs from an array of cultures and styles, the second night of the University of Rhode Island’s seventh annual Guitar Festival was held at the Pump House Music Works and Shady Lea Guitar Company on Friday, Oct. 21.
The main focus of night two was dedicated to Latin music, featuring two performers that played multiple songs on their guitars for an hour each. Each guitarist had a lot of confidence behind their performances and had a lot of gratitude for all the people who showed up to the event to support them.
Adam Levin, an artist and teacher in classical guitar at URI and the coordinator of the Guitar Festival, kicked off the night by giving a brief speech on the event and how this yearly gathering has received positive attention over the years thus far.
Levin said that, with this festival, he hopes to grow the local guitar community and that coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic means that they can finally go back to being live and in person.
After he finished speaking, Levin introduced the first performer of the night: Andrea González Caballero, a Spanish guitarist.
González Caballero performed a range of songs, and she divided each into four distinct groups. Each group had about two to three songs in them, and each of them had complimentary sounds to one another.
The first group of songs she played were medium-paced and had a very beautiful sound to them. Every song she played sounded either like a lullaby or a chase scene in a movie. Watching her play the guitar was shell-shocking as her fingers moved so quickly and effectively on the fret. She made it seem easy as she closed her eyes to focus on her performance.
Her second group of songs was a slow-paced collection that felt like walking the streets of Spain on a summer night, while the third consisted of four songs with more of a classical sound to them. The fourth and final group of songs was a lot more fast-paced than the other groups, luring all eyes and ears in the crowd towards her guitar.
René Izquierdo, a Cuban artist, was the second performer of the night. His set included many Cuban songs that had a unique and entrancing sound to them. He performed about 10 songs for his performance.
All of the songs that he played had great rhythms to them, and he, like González Caballero, had very quick fingers that glided across the guitar. He received a standing ovation and performed an encore of two extra songs.
Jose Canton, a nursing student at URI, came with his friend Annie Reagan, a Rhody alumna, to watch the performances on Friday. Canton said that the event was special to him.
“I specifically wanted to come today because of the Latin music, like Spanish and Cuban, because I’m from Mexico,” Canton said. “It was beautiful, and having these people so close to you and being able to interact with them after the concert is a very unique experience.”
Reagan also gave her input on the event and how she enjoyed the comfortable space where the music could be shared.
“It was a very intimate space which was nice,” Reagan said. “Everyone was close together, we were really close to the performers, which was awesome. I’ve never seen classical guitar performed, so it wasn’t what I was expecting, but it was a beautiful show.”
Chinnawat Themkumkwun, a classical guitarist who recently received his master’s degree in classical guitar at the Mozarteum University in Salzburg, Austria, also attended the performance. He is an international classical guitarist from Thailand and was named the champion of the Rising Stars 2021 Young Artist Competition.
He sat in the front row for the performance and said that these types of events are important for a number of reasons.
“I think it’s important because I think music is for everyone,” he said. “It’s not only for professional musicians. I think that music is part of the human being, it’s part of the culture, it’s part of every single second and every single minute.”
Themkumkwun also said that this event was very helpful for performers to play in a new setting rather than in just the concert hall at URI.
“It’s not too often to have an artist who plays in this kind of atmosphere,” he said. “Normally, we usually play in the big concert hall that’s very formal. I think this concert gave a lot of new perspectives for classical music.”
Many people lingered at the Pump House even after the event came to a close. It’s safe to say that this year’s Guitar Festival will be talked about until next year’s rendezvous.