New York Guitar Seminar: Brazil

Pre-registration for this event is now closed. Box office will open at 6:15 PM in the lobby.

Admission: FREE for AS and YPA Members, and Hunter College students; $20 for non-members. (No additional fees will be charged when purchasing online.) $10 tickets will be available for purchase at the door for students and seniors with ID.

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For over a decade, Music of the Americas has presented the opening event of the New York Guitar Seminar at Mannes. Last year, we hosted Manuel Barrueco and the Beijing Guitar Duo, a tribute evening to legendary Cuban guitarist Elías Barreiro, and a masterclass with Sharon Isbin. Tonight's concert will spotlight Brazil, featuring Newman-Oltman Guitar Duo and special guest João Luiz.

About the artists

Hailed as a “revelation to hear” by The Washington Post and celebrating their 40th anniversary season, the Newman & Oltman Guitar Duo perform a broad range of repertoire that spans Renaissance duets through commissions from today’s top composers. Their innovative programming, matchless technique and ensemble precision, combined with their commitment to expanding the repertoire for guitar duo, make Newman & Oltman a widely recognized and influential ensemble both in the United States and abroad. In addition to their phenomenal musicianship, they are dedicated to inspiring the next generation of guitar players through their many educational endeavors.

Newman & Oltman’s concert tours have taken them across the globe. The duo has collaborated with such diverse artists as author Frank McCourt, composer/conductor Marvin Hamlisch, and the Pittsburgh Symphony Pops, mezzo-soprano Frederica von Stade, fiddler Eileen Ivers, pianist Clarice Assad, violinist Tim Fain, and the ETHEL, Calder, and Turtle Island string quartets. Recent premieres include Concierto Buenos Aires, composed for them by tango composer Daniel Binelli, with the Orchestre de l’Opéra de Reims in France and with the Virginia Symphony. International engagements included appearances in Curitiba (Brazil), Iserlohn (Germany), and Alessandria, Lanciano, and Volterra (Italy). Last summer, the duo returned to serve as co-artistic directors of the Lanciano International Guitar Seminar.

Champions of new music, Newman & Oltman have built a unique repertoire of works for two guitars by composers such as Paul Moravec, Augusta Read Thomas, Lowell Liebermann, Dušan Bogdanović, Arthur Kampela, and Roberto Sierra. Plans for future commissions include a new work by Leo Brouwer dedicated to the duo. Their artistry has also been captured on a dozen critically acclaimed recordings. Fanfare Magazine hailed the duo’s CD Music from Raritan River as “top notch” and “a winner all around.” “A reference standard” (Billboard), “Their duet recordings reveal a finely blended sound and true unity of timbre and style” (The New York Times), “beautifully realized performances” (Guitar Player Magazine). Newman & Oltman have been recognized by National Endowment for the Arts and Chamber Music America, and received an ASCAP Award for Adventurous Programming, among others.

João Luiz Rezende, a highly trained and internationally acclaimed guitarist, is the head of the classical guitar program in the Conservatory of Music at Purchase College. As a performer and composer, Rezende is equally at home with classical, Brazilian, and world music. His solo guitar and guitar ensemble repertoire covers all the main works in the guitar literature, from Dowland to Carter and Brazilian rhythms from choro to baião. He is a founding member of the Brasil Guitar Duo, which won the prestigious Concert Artists Guild Competition in New York, and also performs with Quartenaglia, one of Brazil’s most important chamber music ensembles. Rezende has recorded more than 10 CDs playing solo and in duo, trio, and quartet; all have featured his arrangements of classical or Brazilian works. As a soloist and teacher, he is on the faculty of important music festivals, such as Festival Eleazar de Carvalho and Santa Marcelina College in Brazil and the New York Guitar Seminar at Mannes School of Music. In addition to his career as a performer, he writes guitar methods for beginners, designs the guitar curriculum, and trains instructors for an important music education initiative for underprivileged children, Guri Santa Marcelina, in São Paulo, Brazil.