Hey!

Discovery is one of the main motivators behind this newsletter, which is why we are delighted to feature a new discovery by Ida Presti in today's YouTube Find of the Week.

In addition, we have plenty of enthusiasm to share in the Album of the Week category, and enthusiasm is also the recurring theme of our Morning Routine with Leon Albert, who surprises us once again with an etude that is more sportive than one might think.

Enthusiasm, curiosity, technique, and discipline are all required when it comes to competitions for young musicians. We spoke to Heiner Donath, who has long been closely associated with the Anna Amalia Competition in Weimar, about this topic, and we were very pleasantly surprised by how openly he answered our questions. Everything is in motion. This also applies to the Feel-Good Tune of the Week with Meute on the roof of the Elbphilharmonie.

But read and see for yourself.

We hope you enjoy it.

Stefan and Willi

YOUTUBE FIND OF THE WEEK
with Antonin Vercellino

Filling gaps is more exciting than some people might think. Because this is anything but a fill-in. Ida Presti's collection of etudes was long considered to consist of six parts, but the seventh etude, now available, edited in 2025 by Isabelle Presti, Thibaut Garcia, and Antonin Vercellino, corrects this assumption. However, what is referred to here as an “etude” is more of a small, open-form character piece that has a wonderful prelude-like effect.

At the beginning, you hear a melodious upper voice that unfolds in wide legato arcs, accompanied by a delicately pulsating accompaniment with late Romantic to Impressionist harmonies. In Étude 7, the guitar is conceived from a sound perspective. It’s much more than a finger exercise. Awesome. Check it out.

ALBUM OF THE WEEK
with Elena Ortega

Discovering new or lesser-known repertoire beyond the classical mainstream for our favorite instrument is certainly one of our strongest motivations for this newsletter.  Isn't it wonderful how the guitar offers us an almost endless wealth of possibilities for musical expression and communication? 
Elena Ortega has illuminated our ears with her latest album, Luz tras la oscuridad. What she has in store for us in terms of interpretative skills, crystal-clear tone, and enthusiasm is truly exquisite.
In addition to familiar names such as Pujol, Albeníz, Domeniconi, and Assad, she also presents her Spanish compatriot Vicent Asencio i Ruano and Cuban guitarist Eduardo Martín. Juan Erena Mármol's “Carta a Lucina” exemplifies the beauty of the album and makes you want to indulge in the following tracks!
Treat yourself to this sunbeam of guitar artistry!

MORNING-ROUTINE
A coffee with Leon Albert

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

Sports routines away from the instrument have been a big thing for me lately. I particularly like endurance activities, where I almost fall into a trance or a kind of meditation through consistent movement and rhythm without much change. Transferring this back to the guitar has inspired me to write a piece with percussive elements, which I would never have expected of myself in this lifetime. Let's get moving!

KNOW-HOW
with Heiner Donath

How does your view of the musical development of young musicians change when you have been closely involved with a youth competition for many years? Heiner Donath is president of the Gitarreverein Weimar, which has close ties to the Anna Amalia Competition. Since May 2025, he has also been director of the Southern Breisgau Youth Music School.

The interview focuses on what young musicians gain from competitions – musically, personally, and through interaction with each other. We also touch on topics such as: what kind of support is most helpful at any given moment, how can discipline and technique be meaningfully combined with enthusiasm and curiosity, and what experiences shaped Heiner himself during his time as a very young musician – including a sentence that would fit on any of our still fictional festival posters. We are very grateful that Heiner took the time to answer our questions.

Hi Heiner, the Anna Amalia Competition brings together young musicians from different countries. What experiences do they take away from it – musically, personally, and perhaps also in terms of interacting with each other? 
It would be best to ask the participants themselves… But I know from a lot of feedback that for many, just performing in the wonderful hall of the Schloss Belvedere Music High School in Weimar is an experience in itself. In addition, every participant receives artistic and personal appreciation. And, of course, the much-vaunted “look beyond the horizon” can be decisive for further development – confirmation when you win a prize, or motivation when you are not (yet) among the winners this time.

How can you tell what kind of support is best for a child interested in music at any given moment – especially when they are particularly engaged with music? 
That's difficult to say. You need to have a good sense of pedagogy. It's important to always observe whether the current support (and I don't mean financial support) is having a positive effect. Things can change quickly – what's good today may no longer be effective in six months' time. It's perhaps comparable to a doctor prescribing medicine: they also have to see whether it has the desired effect (or side effects), and it can also lose its effect if taken continuously…

What role do technique and discipline on the one hand, and enthusiasm and curiosity on the other, play in the musical development of young guitarists?
That varies greatly from person to person. Discipline is very important in any case, but technique should never be an end in itself. I myself tended to hate technique programs, especially since you can never really implement them 1:1 in a piece. In my experience, young people only practice technique when it cannot be avoided, i.e., when it brings noticeable added value or progress. I consider enthusiasm and curiosity to be more important for musical (and thus also technical) development, and if someone really wants to be able to play a piece that is actually still too difficult, this can provide an enormous boost to their motivation and development. So the crucial question is how to keep young guitarists and musicians motivated…

Do you remember a formative/inspiring experience from your own childhood or youth in connection with music or the guitar? 
During the first Jena Choral Symphony Festival – organized in the late 1970s by Günter Blumhagen, then chief conductor of the Jena Philharmonic Orchestra – there was a concert for schoolchildren followed by an opportunity to talk with the musicians. I was so impressed by both the concert and the personal conversation with the conductor of the guest choir “Vox Humana” from Hungary that I attended almost all of the other concerts at the festival (I must have been 12 or 13 years old at the time) and dreamed of becoming a conductor myself. As for the guitar, it was a record by Julian Bream that my parents gave me when I took part in my first competition.

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? 
Music is more than an accumulation of correctly played notes.

FEEL-GOOD TUNE OF THE WEEK
with Meute @ Elbphilharmonie Hamburg

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 newsletter. 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.