Hey!

It's September, and we have yet a few summery musical greetings for early fall.

Ihor Kordiuk arranges and interprets the wonderful fantasia from Silvius Leopold Weiss's Sonata in C minor, while the album of the week is devoted exclusively to Greek mythology, including the oldest melody in the world. In the sheet music section, Leon Albert clings to August just a little longer and wonders what commitments you, dear readers, are moving around for more free time, but above all, where you are moving his ideas on the fretboard.

And then we are delighted to have Stephan Kane as a very exciting interview partner, who has been working for over eight years for the wonderful and largest concert series in North America: The Omni Foundation.

And: For anyone who knows someone with a birthday in September, we have a Feel-Good Tune, “Happy Birthday” in Vivaldi style by Avi Avital, for you to share. Of course, you are also very welcome to share this newsletter.

We hope you enjoy reading, listening, and watching.

Stefan and Willi

YOUTUBE FIND OF THE WEEK
with Ihor Kordiuk

We have often discussed in our newsletter the musical benefits of arranging pieces written for other instruments yourself. Especially in the case of compositions for which there are already a large number of arrangements available, it can be tempting to simply fall back on these without further consideration.

Ihor Kordiuk did not do this with the Fantasia from Silvius Leopold Weiss's Sonata in C minor. He arranged it himself. He plays the piece in D minor, which makes sense and is common practice.

But what is particularly inspiring is his deeply emotional and musically beautiful interpretation of the Fantasia. We were thrilled by the contrast between the sensitive yet powerful improvisational gesture at the beginning and the pleasantly clear voices as the Fantasia progresses. And if that's not enough to convince you to check out Ihor Kordiuk's interpretation of Weiss, we highly recommend you to watch the video which is also very stylish, with tasteful and delicate editing and perspective changes.

ALBUM OF THE WEEK
with Sotiris Athanasiou

Summer is drawing to a close, so it's time to stock up on some warm guitar tunes for the cold months ahead. Sotiris Athanasiou has gone ahead and provided an album for this purpose.

Taking myths from ancient Greece as a source of inspiration is something that some of you may already be familiar with. On his album Kithara, Sotiris plays exclusively new compositions based on this theme. Composer Benoit Mussard, for example, has dedicated an entire cycle called “Gods of Olympus” to the Greek gods. We particularly like the different compositional and playing techniques used in the multitude of compositions while each and every one of them revolves around the same theme.

A particularly beautiful example of this is the final piece, “Seikilos.” Here, Athanasiou draws on the famous Seikilos epitaph, which contains the oldest completely preserved melody in the world. Together with the voice of Vasiliki Koltouki, it becomes not a museum relic, but a delicate, lively finale to the album, spanning the arc from antiquity to the present day.

And all of this is wonderfully interpreted and finely played by Sotiris Athanasiou. Listen to the record!

MORNING-ROUTINE
A coffee with Leon Albert

Hi Leon, what’s the routine for this week?

Enjoy the summer and don't talk about it ending too soon – that's how you make August a great month. (Also applies to September, editor's note.) Just as the still warm nights are good for spontaneous activities, this piece also invites spontaneity and improvisation with the individual ideas. Lobos-style shifting strategies with open strings are always beautiful – what are you shifting around in your calendar to make more time for leisure, and where are you shifting my idea on the fretboard? Have fun!

KNOW-HOW
with Stephan Kane

Stephan Kane has been working for Omni, probably the best-known and largest (classical) guitar series in North America, for eight years in various positions and roles. We were interested in how he now does this from Berlin, what role the digitization of concert formats plays for Omni, what differences he personally sees between the culture of classical guitar in North America and that in Europe, and what his visions are for the classical guitar. And because Stephan is first and foremost an enthusiastic guitarist himself, he has a very practical yet philosophical answer to our last question. We are very pleased that Stephan took the time to answer our questions.

Hi Stephan! You work for OMNi for quite a while now. What does it mean to be a Chief Operations Officer of Omni for a prestigious concert series in California, especially from a distance? 
The Omni Foundation for the Performing Arts is entering its 45th season featuring 26 guitarists across 12 concerts. It's known as the largest series for guitar in North America, perhaps the world. Artistic Director Richard Patterson is the impressario behind finding artists to play on the series and he has been a close mentor to me since I first joined 8 years ago as a 31-year old graduate student volunteer at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. I have served in several roles at Omni from Operations Manager, General Manager, Digital Media Director, to now Chief Operations Officer. Each role taught me invaluable skills to manage a nonprofit organization with a longstanding reputation. You must also always be adaptable to changing winds and tides.

Omni is known for high-level live concerts. How did you and how do you translate that quality into the digital world? 
The catalyst for boosting Omni into the digital world was the pandemic. Other presenters explored livestreaming concerts while charging high ticket fees. Richard decided to fly artists to San Francisco and do in-house recordings of them playing their program for us to put up on our YouTube channel for free. That inspired other artists to get involved and it's what lead to Xuefei Yang filming her concert in Beijing, Marko Topchii in Kiev, and David Russell in churches throughout Spain. Featuring world-class guitarists in high-quality videos is what I believe created the organic growth of Omni's YouTube channel, which now has over 100k subscribers and 20 million views. We now have close partnerships with D'Addario, Alhambra, and a few select festivals throughout Europe.

Since you live in Europe now. What do you think is the difference in how classical guitar is received here compared to the US? 
That is a great question. It's interesting to be in Berlin, which by some claim, is not a "guitar town". However, several incredible classical guitarists live here like Carlo Domeniconi, Tal Hurwitz, Kanahi Yamashita, Eva Beneke, Marco Tamayo, and Willi Leinen ;)... to name a few. The guitar festivals in Europe are unparalleled. David Tanenbaum once said that he feels that the guitar in Europe is seen as an artistic instrument with a feminine energy compared to its macho cousin in the US. Underneath it all, I would say that the classical guitar is appreciated in the US for being an exotic instrument from a far-away land. While in Europe, the classical guitar is perhaps seen as more a part of the culture here.

What’s your personal vision for the future of classical guitar over the next decade?
Classical guitar will always be around because it brings so much meaning to people. It's easy to get caught up in the latest hype from competitions and guitar building innovations, but the core of classical guitar belongs to the heart of the player and to the listener, which will never go away and is a welcomed relief in this plastic sugary age of AI. Classical guitar is honest and I would like to see more people start playing the classical guitar over the next decade to experience what it's like to play something so intimate with their own hands. Suzuki guitar pioneer Frank Longay believed that if only everyone played music, violence would subsist and the world would heal. So I'm an optimist, what do you want?

Imagine you could have one sentence printed on a poster to be put up in huge numbers at all the (classical) music festivals in the world. What sentence would that be? 
Practice Makes Progress and Progress Makes Me Practice.

https://www.stephankane.com/
https://omniconcerts.com/

FEEL-GOOD TUNE OF THE WEEK
with Avi Avital

An upbeat and positive melody! It makes you want to jump out of bed in the morning. Or take a look at the sky in the middle of the day. Stress? Bad news? Put on your headphones, let your hair blow in the wind and jump on the good mood train!

Our feel-good tune of the week!

OUTRO

Thank you for reading! Please feel free to send us your suggestions and comments directly in response to this issue. As always, you can find new music discoveries – including artists we wrote about in today's issue – in our Spotify playlist for the newsletter, which we have linked below.

Be kind to one another.

Stay tuned!

Stefan & Willi

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New Classical Guitar is a newsletter by Willi Leinen and Stefan Degel from TMBM. You can find our music and more information about our journey at http://t-m-b-m.com/.

On Spotify, we curate a playlist with our favorite pieces. Feel free to follow our New Classical Guitar Playlist at https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3ZwxJRAsW9Zs2JiS2eLy6a?si=9b2a737f01c043a4 and recommend new additions.