2025 Jerry Snyder GuitarFest

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• 2025 Jerry Snyder GuitarFest

  • Start
    1 Mar 2025
  •  
    9:59 AM
  • End
    2 Mar 2025
  •  
    5:00 PM
  • Location
    Evergreen Valley High School, 3300 Quimby Road, San Jose

  
  DIRECTIONS: Evergreen Valley High School
  

  Join the South Bay Guitar Society on March 1 - 2 for the annual Jerry Snyder GuitarFest! Experience two days of masterclasses, performances, an open mic, a luthier display, and more. For for information, please visit https://sbgs.org/2025-Jerry-Snyder-GuitarFest

  Time: Saturday-Sunday March 1-2, 2025

  Location:  Evergreen Valley High School, 3300 Quimby Road, San Jose

  Contact: 408-915-SBGS

  
  

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• 2025 Jerry Snyder GuitarFest

  • Start
    1 Mar 2025
  •  
    10:00 AM
  • End
    2 Mar 2025
  •  
    5:00 PM
  • Location
    Evergreen Valley High School, 3300 Quimby Road, San Jose

  
  

  

  DIRECTIONS: Evergreen Valley High School
  

  Join the South Bay Guitar Society on March 1 - 2, 2025, for the 20th anniversary of our annual Jerry Snyder GuitarFest! Experience two days of masterclasses, performances, an open mic, a luthier display, and more. 

  Time: Saturday-Sunday March 1-2, 2025 10am-5pm

  Location:  Evergreen Valley High School, 3300 Quimby Road, San Jose

  
  

  
  

  Contact: 408-915-SBGS

  
  

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• Masterclass with Professor David Tanenbaum

  • When
    1 Mar 2025
  •  
    10:00 AM - 4:00 PM
  • Location
    Evergreen Valley High School, 3300 Quimby Road, San Jose

  Registration is closed

  
  

  Masterclass with Professor David Tanenbaum, San Francisco Conservatory of Music

  Performer slots for this class are sold out. Admission to audit the class is free.

  March 1, 2025, 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.

  Evergreen Valley High School, 3300 Quimby Road, San Jose

  Please note that a parent or guardian must accompany performers under the age of 18 at all times, including during warm-up and the class itself.

  Directions

  The South Bay Guitar Society is pleased to present a masterclass with David Tanenbaum, chair of the guitar department at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. Players will perform individually and receive feedback from Professor Tanenbaum in this educational event.

  Recognized internationally as an outstanding performing and recording artist and a charismatic educator, David Tanenbaum is “one of today’s most distinguished guitarists,” notes the BBC. He has performed in more than 45 countries and in 1988 became the first American guitarist invited by the Chinese government to perform in China. 

  He has been a soloist with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony, Minnesota Orchestra, London Sinfonietta, and many others, with such eminent conductors as Esa-Pekka Salonen, Alan Gilbert, Kent Nagano, and John Adams. The New York Times called him “a master of the instrument," adding, "Mr. Tanenbaum played so musically and expressively that the listener was led directly to the essence of composer.”

  While his repertoire encompasses diverse styles, Tanenbaum is recognized as one of today’s most eloquent proponents of new guitar repertoire. Among the many works written for him is Hans Werner Henze’s guitar concerto An Eine Aolsharfe, which he premiered throughout Europe and recorded with the composer conducting, Terry Riley’s first guitar piece Ascención, five works by Pulitzer Prize winner Aaron Jay Kernis, and the last completed piece by Lou Harrison. Tanenbaum has toured extensively with Steve Reich and Musicians and was invited to a guitar festival produced by Toru Takemitsu in Nagano, Japan. Tanenbaum’s arrangement of Steve Reich’s Nagoya Guitars, created in collaboration with the composer, is performed worldwide.

  Tanenbaum’s three dozen recordings reflect his broad repertoire interests. His 2002 recording as soloist with Esa-Pekka Salonen and the Los Angeles Philharmonic in John Adams's Naïve and Sentimental Music was nominated for a Grammy Award. Tanenbaum's latest release Double Echo-New Guitar Concertos from the Americas became a best seller on the Naxos label.

  Tanenbaum is chair of the guitar department at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, where he received the 1995 Outstanding Professor Award, and is in demand for master classes worldwide.

  
  

  
  

   

  
  

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• Guitar Virtuoso Petra Poláčková in Concert

  • When
    1 Mar 2025
  •  
    7:30 PM - 9:30 PM
  • Location
    Evergreen Valley High School, 3300 Quimby Road, San Jose

  Register

  
  

  Guitar virtuoso Petra Poláčková in concert

  with a Prelude performance by Lukas Lin

  Petra Poláčková has dedicated herself to the romantic guitar and its specialized repertoire. In recent years, her focus has shifted to early music, leading her to study the viola da gamba with Christoph Urbanetz and the lute with Prof. David Bergmüller.

  Her career includes concerts, masterclasses, juries, and conferences at renowned festivals and guitar events around the world, including in the Czech Republic, Austria, Germany, Poland, Slovakia, Italy, France, Finland, Denmark, Norway, Switzerland, Hungary, Kosovo, Montenegro, Spain, Portugal, Great Britain, Israel, Chile, Mexico, Australia, and the U.S.

  In 2020, Poláčková released her debut CD WEISS, featuring works by the German lutenist Sylvius Leopold Weiss, recorded on a 9-string romantic guitar. In 2025, her second CD J. K. Mertz will be released by Bridge Records, produced by David Starobin. Both CDs reflect her passion for the repertoire of the Baroque and Romantic eras.

  Since 2010, Poláčková has also been actively involved in the organization of Guitar Festival Mikulov in the Czech Republic, where she contributes her artistic and organizational expertise to the development of the international guitar scene.

  Poláčková teaches at the Royal Academy of Music in Aarhus/Aalborg in Denmark and the Franz Liszt University of Music in Weimar, Germany. From 2018 to 2024, she taught at the Franz Schubert Music School in Fürstenfeld and the Johann-Joseph-Fux Conservatory in Graz, Austria. 

  Born in 1985, Poláčková began her guitar studies at the age of six with Bohuslav Faltus and Miroslava Pavelková in Rožnov pod Radhoštěm and later with Prof. Zdeněk Dvořák  in Prague. From 2004 to 2010, she studied at the Pardubice Conservatory under Prof. Petr Saidl. During this time, she also taught guitar at music schools in Hradec Králové and Choceň. She continued her musical education at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Graz, studying with Prof. Paolo Pegoraro, where she completed her Bachelor’s degree in performance and pedagogy and Master’s degree in performance, both with honors.

  Poláčková performs on a 1923 historical guitar by Domingo Esteso, courtesy of M°Gabriele Lodi, a classical guitar made by Martin Šuk (Esteso copies), and a 9-string romantic guitar made by Jan Tuláček in 2014. 

   

  Program 

  
  

  Prelude performer Lukas Lin

  Lukas Lin is a 15-year-old Homestead High School freshman whose deep love for music began at age three. A dedicated classical guitarist, he currently studies with Yuri Liberzon. Lukas also enjoys playing the piano and bass guitar and experimenting with music production on his computer. Aspiring to a career in music, Lukas is enthusiastic about exploring his musical passions and sharing them with others.

  
  

  Lukas's program:

  J.S. Bach:  Prelude from Suite in c minor BWV 997 

  Antonio Lauro: Vals Venezolano no. 3  

  Jose Luis Merlin: Carnavalito from Suite Del Recuerdo

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

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• Masterclass with Christopher Mallett

  • When
    2 Mar 2025
  •  
    10:00 AM - 4:00 PM
  • Location
    Evergreen Valley High School, 3300 Quimby Road, San Jose

  Register

  
  

  Masterclass with Christopher Mallett, California Conservatory of Music

  Admission to audit the class is free.

  March 2, 2025, 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.

  Evergreen Valley High School, 3300 Quimby Road, San Jose

  Please note that a parent or guardian must accompany performers under the age of 18 at all times, including during warm-up and the class itself.

  Directions

  The South Bay Guitar Society is pleased to present a masterclass with Christopher Mallett, co-director of the California Conservatory of Music. Players will perform individually and receive feedback from Mallett in this educational event.

  Mallett is an American classical guitarist and educator based in the San Francisco Bay Area. Soundboard Magazine has described him as "Virtuosic," while the St. Louis Dispatch dubbed him a "trailblazer."  

  Mallett has performed at some of the country's finest concert halls, guitar societies, and festivals, including the Kravis Center in Palm Beach, Fla., the Sheldon Concert Hall in St. Louis, the 92nd St. Y in New York, the annual convention of the Guitar Foundation of America (GFA) in Indianapolis, the New York Guitar Society, the Austin Guitar Society, and the Cleveland Guitar Society, among others. He also performed throughout Asia Beijing, Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand.

  Mallett's ensemble Duo Noire has been called "truly pathbreaking" by AllMusic, and the duo's most recent album Night Triptych was named one of the best classical albums of 2018 by both AllMusic and I Care If You Listen. Mallett has commissioned new works by over a dozen composers including Clarice Assad, Gity Razaz, Gabriella Smith, Courtney Bryan, Javier Farias, Ray Lustig, Mary Kouyoumdjian, and others. Using period instruments, Mallett recently recorded several videos of the music of 19th century African-American classical guitarist and civil rights activist Justin Holland for the Austin Marie Guitar Collection.

  Mallett has been on the faculty of the University of California Santa Cruz since 2016 as a lecturer of classical guitar studies. He has given lectures at the Juilliard School, the New York Guitar Society, the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, the South Bay Guitar Society, and the Oberlin Conservatory of Music. In 2019 he joined the GFA's board of trustees. Mallett is the co-founder and co-director of the California Conservatory of Music with two locations in the San Francisco Bay Area and co-founder of the Peninsula Guitar Series.

  His students have received top prizes in international guitar competitions, including the GFA's Junior and Senior youth divisions, the James Stroud Competition, the Columbus Guitar Symposium, Boston GuitarFest, Domain Forget, YoungArts National Competition, and more. Several of his students have been invited to perform on National Public Radio's music program From the Top and its Tiny Desk video concert series.

  Mallett has been featured on the cover of Soundboard magazine and in Classical Guitar magazine, the American Suzuki Journal, and Acoustic Guitar magazine. Les Productions d'Oz recently published his arrangements as part of the GFA Spotlight Series.

  Website: https://www.christophermallett.com/ 

  
  

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• Masterclass with Guitar Virtuoso Petra Poláčková

  • When
    2 Mar 2025
  •  
    11:00 AM - 1:00 PM
  • Location
    Evergreen Valley High School, 3300 Quimby Road, San Jose

  Registration is closed

  

  Performer slots for this class are full. Admission to audit is free.
  

  Masterclass with Guitar Virtuoso Petra Poláčková

  Location: Evergreen Valley High School, 3300 Quimby Road, San Jose

  Directions

  The South Bay Guitar Society is pleased to present a masterclass with guitar virtuoso Petra Poláčková. Four players will perform individually and receive feedback from Poláčková in this educational event.

  Registration required for the four performer slots. Admission to audit the class is free. 

   

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