Registrants get 3 private, 40 minutes lessons, have access to masterclasses, seminars and performance class (a friendly supportive exchange in the afternoon, where participants perform their repertoire for one another on the main stage!). The registration fee includes tickets to the International Concert Series.
Lessons are scheduled after registration closes and participants are informed of their specific lesson schedule by email.
Participate in Guitar Ensemble!
We are continuing with a guitar ensemble in this year’s activities. Directed by Emma Rush, this is a great opportunity to hone musicianship skills and to get to know your fellow participants. Please contact info@saubleguitarfest.com to confirm your participation, and for further details.
Register for the 2020 Summer Study Class!
2019 Teaching Faculty
Jeffrey McFadden (Artistic Director)
Over the course of a twenty-five year career, Jeffrey McFadden has established a place among the most admired guitarists of his generation. Concert engagements have taken him throughout Canada, the United States and Europe. He has been a featured performer at many international music festivals, including Guitar ’87, the Guitar Foundation of America Convention, Gitarren-Symposium Iserlohn, the National Flute Association (USA) Convention, the Festival Mediterraneo della Chitarra, GuitarFest Sevilla and many others.
In 1992, Jeffrey McFadden was awarded a Silver Medal in the prestigious Guitar Foundation of America Competition and was a prize-winner in the 1993 Great Lakes Guitar Competition. His debut recording was the first in the Laureate Series on Naxos, and has sold in the tens of thousands of copies. He has recorded eight highly acclaimed CDs since then, featuring the works of Fernando Sor, Napoléon Coste, Agustin Barrios, and most recently, Mauro Giuliani’s arrangements for guitar duo of famous Rossini overtures (with guitarist Michael Kolk).
Jeffrey McFadden is the first ever graduate of the Doctor of Musical Arts degree program at the University of Toronto studying under Norbert Kraft. An Eaton Fellow, he completed his dissertation in 2010. It forms the basis of his groundbreaking book, Fretboard Harmony: Common-Practice Harmony on the Guitar, published in 2010 by Les Productions d’Oz.
McFadden is Head of Guitar Studies and Associate Professor in the Faculty of Music, University of Toronto. A highly sought-after pedagogue and clinician, his students have garnered numerous Canadian and International awards and scholarships. He has worked with students at nearly every major University music program in Canada and many in the USA. He is a prolific arranger and has for many years curated the Royal Conservatory of Music Guitar Series with his colleague Robert Hamilton.
Jeffrey McFadden was the recipient of the 2012 City of Hamilton Arts Award for Music. He is a D’Addario Artist and performs on guitars by Roberto De Miranda and Marcus Dominelli.
https://www.facebook.com/jeffreymcfaddenmusician
McFadden’s ability to make the guitar sing is second to none…
Daily Telegraph (UK)
A technically pristine performance…he is an impressive player.
Fort Worth Star-Telegram (USA)
He showed a depth of nuance and timbre which touched the audience deeply..wonderfully interpreted.
El Plazuela (Spain)
A consummate interpreter
Classical Guitar (USA)
Robert Hamilton
Mr. Hamilton holds a Performer’s A.R.C.T. in classical guitar as well as a Teacher’s A.R.C.T. in classical guitar pedagogy from the Royal Conservatory of Music. Mr. Hamilton studied solo guitar repertoire and the RCM examination curriculum with his principle teachers Carol Van Feggelen and Norbert Kraft at the RCM. As well, he specialized in the study of classical guitar technique with Aaron Shearer at the Peabody Conservatory (Baltimore, MD) and guitar ensemble performance, teaching techniques and guitar pedagogy with Jacques Chandonnet at Laval University (Quebec).
Hamilton began his professional teaching career in Sudbury as the guitar instructor at Cambrian College. Later he established the guitar program at Laurentian University and in 1979 became a faculty member of the Royal Conservatory of Music. In addition to his teaching activities Mr. Hamilton is also a juror of guitar exams and recitals for students in the music programs at the Faculty of Music, University of Toronto, as well as a workshop clinician and festival adjudicator throughout the country. He is the Co-editor of the RCM Guitar Series and Syllabus and founder and director of the Avondale Ensemble performing group.
Many of Mr. Hamilton’s students have won the silver medal for the highest exam mark in Ontario and he has produced many RCM graduates in both guitar performance and pedagogy, some now with teaching and performing careers across Canada and the U.S.
Emma Rush
Over the past decade, Emma Rush has established herself as one of Canada’s preeminent classical guitarists. Known for her innovative programming and powerful stage presence, along with her warm sound and virtuosic technique, an event with Emma Rush is one to remember.
Emma Rush’s career has commanded world recognition. Recent touring highlights include a four-city tour in China, starting with the Altamira Shanghai International Guitar Festival, appearances at guitar festivals including Festival de Guitarras Lagos de Moreno(Mexico), the Nyköping Gitaarseminarium (Sweden), and the Internationales Gitarren Symposion, Iserlohn (Germany). She performs regularly as Azuline Duo with flutist Sara Traficante with appearances in 2017 at the Sauble Beach Guitar Festival (ON) and the Lonestar Guitar Festival (Texas).
Rush is an avid collaborator and has presented music with Canadian guitarist Timothy Phelan, appeared as a soloist with Symphony on the Bay, Cambridge Symphony Orchestra, Musicata Choir, and Sinfonia Ancaster, and has recently performed with Canadian rock legend Rik Emmet and fingerstyle guitar powerhouse Don Ross.
In 2017, Emma Rush was included in a line up of all-star Canadian guitarists including Bruce Cockburn and Jesse Cook in the Group of Seven Guitar Project documentary commissioned by the McMichael Canadian Art Collection.
Canadiana, Rush’s newest CD release, features solo guitar arrangements of classic Canadian songs by Joni Mitchell, Gordon Lightfoot, and Stan Rogers.. Folklórica, her debut CD, was released in the fall of 2014. The CD showcases a global classical guitar repertoire that draws inspiration from folk legend and traditional music harmonies.
Rush completed her post-graduate studies at the Hochshule für Musik in Detmold, Germany, following an honours Bachelor of Music degree from Dalhousie University in Halifax, NS. She holds faculty appointments at Mohawk College and Redeemer University College in Hamilton. She has been an invited instructor at music festivals, colleges, and universities around the world including University of Guadalajara, Texas Wesleyan University, University of Louisville, Université de Moncton.
Rush is the Founder and Artistic Director of the Guitar Hamilton concert series that includes the Hamilton International Guitar Festival.
Michael Kolk
Michael Kolk has performed at music festivals and concert halls throughout Europe and North America and has been called “one of the most musical guitarists performing and recording today” (This is Classical Guitar). Liona Boyd has described him as “one of the most brilliant and expressive classical guitarists I have heard in my life”. A winner of numerous guitar competitions, he has released two solo albums to date, as well as two albums as part of the Henderson-Kolk Guitar Duo. Michael has collaborated with musicians in both classical and popular genres and made his orchestral debut as soloist with the Toronto Philharmonia. His most recent solo album, Mosaic, released by Alma Records in February 2014, was praised as “playing and musicianship of the highest order” by Whole Note Magazine. Originally from Vancouver, Michael currently lives and teaches in Toronto. He holds a Performer’s ARCT from the Royal Conservatory of Music, and a Master’s Degree in Guitar Performance from the University of Toronto where he studied with Jeffrey McFadden.
Patrick Kearney
Patrick began his professional career as an international competitor and touring artist, winning top prizes in several international competitions. He has performed in concert and conducted master classes on numerous tours throughout Europe, the United States, Mexico, and Canada. He has commissioned and premiered several works by contemporary composers such as Harry Stafylakis, Andrew Zohn, Atanas Ourkouzounov, Jay Kauffman, Ginette Bellevance, and Robert F. Jones, and has inspired composers such as Daniel Boyer and Claude Engel to create and dedicate new works to him.
Mr. Kearney teaches guitar at Concordia University in Montreal and is the founder and director of the Montreal International Classical Guitar Festival and Competition (www.guitaremontreal.com).
Marc Teicholz
Described by Gramophone as “arguably the best of the new young guitarists to have emerged,” and by Soundboard magazine as “among the best we have ever heard,” Teicholz’s performances throughout the world include tours of the United States, Canada, Russia, Poland, Switzerland, Southeast Asia, New Zealand and Fiji. His recitals and master classes have received critical acclaim, and he has been featured in concert with orchestras in Spain, Portugal, California and Hawaii.
He has also had new works written specially for him. Most recently, Teicholz debuted Clarice Assad’s Concerto for Guitar, O Saci-Pererê, at the Biasini Festival in San Francisco. Teicholz tours the United States extensively with The Festival of Four. He is featured on the pilot soundtrack for George Lucas’ Young Indiana Jones, and has recorded solo CDs for Naxos, Sugo, Menus and Music, and most recently, Guitar Salon International. His latest solo disc, Valseana, presents works performed on historic guitars of the period of each musical selection. On Delos records, he has recently released “Open your Heart” with soprano Laura Claycomb, featuring mixed 19th and 20th century composers.
For Naxos, Marc Teicholz has made his mark with two collections of Sor’s music already committed to disc. In a show of his versatility, he has also recorded the fifth volume of the collected works for guitar by the 19th Century French virtuoso guitarist and composer Napoleon Coste.
Teicholz, currently on the faculty of the San Francisco Conservatory, teaches in the summer at the California Summer Arts Festival and the Weatherfield Music festival in Vermont. He received his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from the Yale School of Music, and holds a J.D. from the University of California Berkeley Boalt School of Law.
Richard Todd
A native of Nashville, Richard Todd began classical guitar studies in his youth with Joe Rea Phillips. Subsequently, he received the Bachelor of Music degree, summa cum laude, from the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, the Master of Music degree from Southern Methodist University, and the Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the University of North Texas. He also received the Diploma di Merito from the Accademia Chigiana in Siena, Italy, under the guidance of Oscar Gighlia. Additionally, he studied extensively with world-renowned guitarist Matteo Mela in Cremona, Italy. In these formative years he earned a number of awards, including First Prize in both the Music Teachers’ National Association Competition and the National Federation of Music Clubs Competition.
Over the years, Todd has maintained an active performing career, having played at numerous national and international festivals throughout the U.S., Italy, Slovenia and Canada. Soundboard Magazine has described his playing as “subtly brilliant,” displaying “rich tone, effortless phrasing and a masterful use of silence.” The Fort Worth Star-Telegram noted his playing for its “considerable energy and impressive virtuosity.” His CD recording in duo with Atlanta guitarist John Huston, Pura Vida (www.soundset.com), was described by Soundboard as “powerful and dramatic.”
In addition to his teaching duties at Vanderbilt, Todd is Associate Professor of Music at Tennessee State University, where he serves as Coordinator of both the String and Music Theory areas. He also serves as President of the Middle Tennessee Guitar Alliance (www.middletennesseeguitaralliance.org), a non-profit organization dedicated to furthering guitar artistry, outreach and education in the Greater Nashville area.