We had a visit with our friends at KMFA this morning.  We thought we'd drop by to talk, naturally, about our upcoming season.  We had a terrific time as always!

While we were there, we learned about Dianne Donovan's blog entry about Austin Goes Classical and we thought we'd share it with you!  Click here to see her blog!

On a related note, we just had occasion to hear the recording of the fabulous live broadcast KMFA did of the Pepe Romero concert from Dell Hall we presented on June 22nd.  Tony Morris, of Classical Guitar Alive, and KMFA's Dianne Donovan were hosts... KMFA's ace engineer and host Jeffrey Blaire was the engineer.  My, my, my what a great job they did!

We are pleased to introduce our newest furry fan of Villa-Lobos.  Here "Rocky Audel-Kervella" is posing atop the score of Villa-Lobos' Prelude Number 3!

This picture was submitted by one of our members.  Do you have a guitar pet picture you'd like to share?  Please contact us and we'll let you know where to email it!

Austin master photographer James Frederick Bland was one of many generous members of our community who came together to help us as we hosted the Guitar Foundation of America last month.  Thank you James!

James donated his services on Saturday morning of the festival to take portraits of the competition finalists (3 out of 4 of them) and those fabulous portraits are now viewable online!  Visit Bland's online portrait album and scroll to numbers 13, 14 and 15.

The Austin Classical Guitar Society would like to thanks James Frederick Bland for his generosity - his portrait of the winning contestant, Johannes Moller, will, of course, be viewed far and wide around the world next year as Johannes embarks upon his winner's tour.

Do you play classical guitar?

If so, now's the time to find out more about the Austin Classical Guitar Society's Adult Guitar Ensemble Program - called Community Guitarists!

August 15th is the deadline to apply to be in an ensemble - there are 3 ensembles designed to fit all skill levels.  So if you think you might like to take your guitar playing passion out of the practice to make music with others - please contact program director Carlos Ufret-Vincenty for more information at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

Each year we even put on a Guitar Ensemble Festival called Guitars Galore where other ensembles form around the region come out to play for each other and then play together in a giant orchestra.  We've had fun in the past with Texas-wide composition contests where the winning entry is performed by the whole group.  Last year (2009) we even commissioned the great Roland Dyens to write a new piece for the group, which they were able to play right before Roland himself took the stage!

So no matter where you are in your studies, we'd like to encourage you to join an ensemble if you have the inclination!  Our top-level ensemble is really good, and very dedicated!  So if you are a serious player, we hope you'll still consider joining some of your peers to make music together.