Recent arts coverage:
- Evolutionary biology. Aesthetic determinism. Live action role playing. The Rude Mechs are making a new play again
- Suburban battlefield: Women fight invisible foe in Amie Siegel’s ‘Black Moon’
- In eerie paintings by Ana Fernandez, a house isn’t just a house
More arts coverage | Follow this blog on Twitter @artsinaustin | Read recent arts reviews
Austin360 blogs > Austin Arts: Seeing Things > Archives > 2009 > April > 21
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Explore Austin’s other live music scene
We’re in the midst of a five-week project exploring Austin’s ‘other’ live music scene — classical music. Recent coverage: | UT scholars fill in where Ellington left off on his only opera, ‘Queenie Pie ’ | Eric Einhorn makes ‘Dialogues With The Carmelites’ real Q-and-A with Matthew Hinsley, Austin Classical Guitar Society
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: Alert
Q-and-A: Matthew Hinsley, Austin Classical Guitar Society
On Saturday, the Austin Classical Guitar Society will present Tunisian-French guitarist and composer Roland Dyens in a solo concert.
We caught up with Matthew Hinsley, executive director of ACGS and himself a guitarist, to ask a few questions.
What are you working on?
I am fortunate to have a very rich and full life. My wife Glenda was recently doing an exercise where she was trying to brainstorm about what her ideal day would be and, after spending the day on it, she snagged me and asked me what my ideal day might be like. After thinking about it briefly, I surprised us both by responding: “I actually think I just lived it”.
My weekday mornings are spent running the Austin Classical Guitar Society, an organization I have been running for the past 12 years. The organization has grown to be the largest guitar society in America and it is a great privilege for me to be working on effective programs that benefit our community with the great people that give their time and energy to the organization. In the afternoons and evenings, and on Saturday, I teach. I have students of all ages and levels but my passion is teaching young people. Over the years I have been extremely fortunate to train major international award-winning youngsters and it seems like the more great young people I work with, the more come to see me from further and further away. Sharing music with passionate and talented young individuals is one of the great joys of my life. I was trained as a performer on the classical guitar (undergraduate at Oberlin Conservatory and Doctoral work at UT) and I round out my professional life as a concert artist.
My current projects for the Guitar Society include closing our 2008-09 International Concert Series and preparing for our 2009 Summer Chamber Series. In October 2008 we published (at www.GuitarCurriculum.com) a full-scale middle school and high curriculum for classroom classical guitar that serves over 500 students each day in Austin now and is in use around the world, so a major project currently is developing and implementing strategies for success with regard to that curriculum and our educational outreach program. The guitar society is also hosting the world’s most prestigious international classical guitar competition at the Long Center for a full week in June 2010 and so I am busy laying the groundwork for what I believe will be the most important guitar convention ever including local partnerships with the Austin Symphony Orchestra, Austin Lyric Opera, Austin Chamber Music Center and more.
As a teacher, I recently published my first book called “Classical Guitar for Young People.” The book comes on the heels of some of my students distinguishing themselves nationally and internationally and I have been simply thrilled at the rate of adoption of my book both as a teaching tool for colleagues around the country and as a text for university pedagogy classes. I was asked to begin the UT string project classical guitar program last fall, which has been marvelous, and I am coming off of a month of traveling where I judged several competitions and taught masterclasses. Two more trips are planned in the near future.
Performing is the hardest part of my life to keep balanced, but I have played several concerts this spring, I have an in town engagement in the next few weeks, and will travel for several concerts this summer and next fall. I am also an avid singer (tenor), and I still take voice lessons. Some of my favorite programs are when I self-accompany on art songs from the renaissance through romantic and modern works. Pure self indulgence really!
Increasingly I am being asked to consult for non-profit organizations. The Guitar Foundation of America asked me to join their board and chair their development committee this year, I have consulted for many guitar societies and in May I’ll travel to Toronto for my first International consulting job for the Toronto Guitar Society. In fact, I am just finishing a draft of what will be my second book this spring about building non-profit arts organizations.
What do you like about Austin’s classical music scene?
What is not to like? Our larger established groups are great, our mid-sized groups (like my organization!) are varied and high-quality, and we have amazing diversity in our smaller organizations and independent artists. The UT Butler School of Music is simply unbelievable and, in many ways, is the generative center of the wheel around which the rest of the arts community spins. Austin audiences are educated, have diverse and, I think, progressive interests, and support our rapidly evolving arts community. Recently I presented a fabulously talented young Polish virtuoso who is programming a lot of new music. I was very gratified that our artist received a standing ovation at the end of his first half (in and of itself an unusual thing) following a remarkable performance of a long, complex, modern work that no one had ever heard before.
I am extremely grateful to the Austin arts community for helping me to build the largest classical guitar society ever in America. Many people view classical guitar as a tiny segment of the classical music world which is itself a tiny segment of the entertainment industry in America. But the Austin arts community was open to the benefits we bring to our community through our vast education and community initiatives, and was willing to take a chance on us.
How could Austin’s classical scene be improved?
The great thing about our classical music scene is that it is evolving. There is a tremendous amount of talent and creativity and collaborative spirit in Austin that is always creating something new. From my limited perspective as a classical musician whose passion is for recitals and chamber music, I would say the single greatest missing element is a world-class 500 to 700 seat recital hall available for the public to use. I would love to be involved in the development of such a facility.
Photo by Greg Abell.
