Category — Latest news

We are on the final countdown to this year’s festival and WYGF HQ is a veritable hive of activity. There’s always time for a quick update however, to tell you a little more about some of the retail therapy opportunities available at WYGF09. [Read more →]

Helen Sanderson talks about her work directing the World Youth Guitar Festival, what WYGF students will be getting up to whilst at the festival, the final WYGF student concert, 13.30 14 August at the Bacon Theatre, and the promise of some kind of WYGF event in 2010! More on that final thought soon!

WYGF Artistic Director Mark Eden reports on how preparations for WYGF’s guitar ensemble showcase concerts are going:

Just under a month ago I organised a rehearsal and concert in Winchester for my Junior Guildhall Guitar Ensemble, and private guitar students to get together for a day and play through the piece which we will be showcasing at WYGF. [Read more →]

WYGF 2009 Guest Artist Martha Masters took time out of her busy schedule at the GFA Convention in Ithaca NY to talk to Mark Eden.  Martha is a major figure in the North American guitar scene and is a performer and teacher with impressive credentials: GFA Competition winner in 2000; CD and DVD recordings with Naxos, GSP, and Mel Bay; teacher at the Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles; and also Vice President of the Guitar Foundation of America. [Read more →]

Helen Sanderson, our illustrious WYGF Director, nabbed me for a chat on the WYGF09 channel about some of the highlights for the World Youth Guitar Festival 2009 and about our new venue Dean Close School in Cheltenham, and the Bacon Theatre where all the big concerts will be held. [Read more →]

Don’t miss out on your last chance to enter the WYGF09 Guitar Competition in association with Trinity Guildhall. We already have some fabulous entries (including some Russian Bears!) which can be viewed on our very own WYGFTV channel on YouTube, so if you’re working on your final version then hurry, hurry, hurry.

In case you missed out on the competition launch earlier this year (where were you?!) we are looking for winning performances of our set works, all taken from the Trinity Guildhall syllabus. We would like you to upload videos of yourselves playing your entry to our YouTube WYGF channel and then the composers themselves will be selecting three finalists in each category who will each have their video performances shown at WYGF09 in front of our grand jury.  The prizes will be an individual lesson with the composer and a WYGF goodie bag.

So, the set-pieces are: [Read more →]

Here at the World Youth Guitar Festival (WYGF) we work hard to make our festival as affordable as possible and with 4 days of coaching, workshops and lessons, concerts from 4 inspirational guest artists, student showcase concerts and most importantly, the final WYGF concert too, we really do cram an awful lot in.

The Arts Circus, the charity behind WYGF feels it is vitally important to make the festival accessible to as many as possible so the bursary scheme was a natural way to assist those students who would otherwise struggle to attend. Our funds are limited but we are able to offer bursaries ranging from a 40% reduction to scholarships for a fully assisted place. These awards are not based on musical ability or performing experience, but purely on financial need. But you’re going to have to be quick as the deadline for this year’s applications is rapidly approaching on 1st April, so if you feel you are eligible then please do have a look at our guidelines and application form below. Click and download – it’s as simple as that!

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bursary_application_wygf09

Now we are officially in the year of WYGF we are really excited to announce the launch of our WYGF competition. What started off life as a Gary Ryan competition, offering our students the chance to win an individual lesson with Gary at the festival as well as loads of ‘Gary Goodies’ (no, these are not his own range of organic biscuits in the shape of a guitar, but a bundle of CDs and fab guitar-prizes) has now mutated into something even more wondrous, with not one, not two, but five competitions featuring Vincent Lindsey-Clark, Peter Nuttall and even yours truly. I can tell you’re all desperate to know exactly how you are going to have a chance of getting your mitts on all of this – so here’s how you do it. [Read more →]

Plans for WYGF09 will be hotting up in the New Year and here on the WYGF website you will be able to keep up to date with all our news, so please SUBSCRIBE if you haven’t done so already either by RSS feed (see that cute little orange button on the right hand side?!) or register your email address instead and we’ll save you the trouble of visiting us and all the latest from WYGF will magically appear in your inbox.

Just to whet your appetite; website features we will be running in the New Year include … [Read more →]

I remember going back to school after the long Summer holidays and and being asked by my English teacher, Mrs Cartledge (who was rather strict, and more than a little bit scary) to write a story entitled A day in the life of a penny. Needless to say mine involved a rather predictable but nevertheless dramatic, tumble from a pocket into the gutter, down the drain and into the murky sewers below. I have absolutely no idea how the story ended now, and I very much doubt that it is ingrained in Mrs Cartledge’s memory either, but I’m going to re-live the experience somewhat by giving you all a glimpse of A day in the life of a WYGF student! [Read more →]