KMFA this weekend: Kids Recording Kids!

Tune in to KMFA this weekend. This summer KMFA began its Kids Recording Kids Project.  Guitar students from McCallum High School, and students from the Austin Chamber Music Center, were recorded by other young people learning their way around classical music radio production!  They produced a one-hour show that will be broadcast this Saturday at 10am, and again on Sunday at 3pm on KMFA, Classical 89.5.  Tune in!


A Great Week at ACGS

Things are heating up these days.

Our newest employee, Eric Pearson, joined us from New York on Tuesday.  He arrived in Texas Tuesday morning and we had him on site teaching within hours!  Eric will be an invaluable asset to our education team and he will also direct our community guitarists programs.

A highlight Wednesday was a film shoot I did with Joseph WIlliams II.  Joe is composing the piece that will be premiered at Austin Pictures with Peter Bay conducting over 100 players with the Miro Quartet.  The 5-movement piece he's writing sound unbelievable and was totally inspired hearing him talk about it.  I can't wait to share the video interview we did with you.

Today we gave away our second prize for our Austin Pictures Picture challenge!  Another will come soon.  It's been really fun seeing all of the images come in on our Facebook page!  We'll be rolling those together with lot's of other slides and images and videos for the AV displays at Austin Pictures.

This Saturday at 10am, and again on Sunday at 3pm, KMFA will broadcast their Kids Recording Kids project on which we were a partner.  The show will feature guitar students from McCallum - so tune in!  And speaking of KMFA - they recorded our sold-out Classical Cactus show last Thursday night and it is set to air at 7PM on Tuesday, September 6th!  So if you didn't get to see Thales Smith and Jonathan Dotson play last Thursday live, you can catch the broadcast!

Between school starting, the new season launching, and the crazy run up to Austin Pictures, things at ACGS are running at top speed.  We're excited for the new projects and the new responsibilities, though, and look forward to doing the very best work we can.


Santana Tix Giveaway this Thursday!

It's been so great to see the amazing images and artworks and observations posted on ACGS' Facebook wall since we began our Austin Pictures Project.

Our second Austin Pictures Picture Challenge is on!  Follow our Facebook link on the Austin Pictures website for directions on how you can participate in our Picture Challenge.  We’ll give away a pair of tickets this Thursday at noon to see Santana at ACL Live on September 12th!

Congratulations to last Thursday’s winner, Meghalee, who took the $100 La Sombra Gift Card prize – and thanks to all who have participated with their amazing pictures of people, places, and works of art.

We're now getting serious about putting together the various AV components for October 1st.  The images uploaded to Facebook from our community members will be rolled into the slides projected throughout the evening and on screens throughout the amazing ACL Live venue!


Santana Tix Giveaway this Thursday!

It's been so great to see the amazing images and artworks and observations posted on ACGS' Facebook wall since we began our Austin Pictures Project.

Our second Austin Pictures Picture Challenge is on!  Follow our Facebook link on the Austin Pictures website for directions on how you can participate in our Picture Challenge.  We’ll give away a pair of tickets this Thursday at noon to see Santana at ACL Live on September 12th!

Congratulations to last Thursday’s winner, Meghalee, who took the $100 La Sombra Gift Card prize – and thanks to all who have participated with their amazing pictures of people, places, and works of art.

We're now getting serious about putting together the various AV components for October 1st.  The images uploaded to Facebook from our community members will be rolled into the slides projected throughout the evening and on screens throughout the amazing ACL Live venue!


KUT/KMFA to record Thursday night's Cactus!

We just learned that our friends at KUT will record tomorrow night's Cactus so that our friends at KMFA can broadcast it in the near future!

How cool is that?


$100 La Sombra Giveaway this Thursday!

On Thursday at noon we will give away a $100 gift card to La Sombra Bar and Grill to whoever has the most popular uploaded image on our Facebook wall!  Join in the fun!  Visit AustinPictures.org and follow the Facebook icon to the upload instructions.  Then tell your friends to vote for your image!

Why Pictures? Our opening night at the 2,200-seat ACL Live Theater on October 1st is called Austin Pictures.  The centerpiece is Jorge Caballero doing the near-impossible: playing the 40-minute orchestral masterwork Pictures at an Exhibition on solo guitar.  By now you’ve read about Peter Bay and the Miro Quartet and the 100+ guitarists from over 1,000 miles away.  Today we’d like to talk a bit about the 11 distinguished young visual artists who are also participating.

The music of Pictures at an Exhibition has 11 evocative themes based on images.  We have commissioned 11 distinguished young visual artists from area high schools to each paint one of the 11 themes on 20”x24” canvases.  Meet the artists now, by visiting Austin Pictures online! These young artists have been asked to study and listen to the music by Mussorgsky that relates to their theme, and paint a work of art in response to it.  In that way, we’ve brought the art-work full circle, since Pictures at an Exhibition was originally composed in response to drawings – we’re doing the reverse!

We want your pictures involved too! The images posted to Facebook in the next 8 weeks will not only be eligible for awesome prizes, but they will also be woven into the fabric of the fabulous AV we’re planning in conjunction with our friends at the Alamo Drafthouse.  We look forward to your participation.

La Sombra Bar and Grill. More than a thousand of you experienced the fabulous food of La Sombra Bar and Grill this summer during our Pasión Latin Series.  Our fun with La Sombra continues!  Not only are they generously donating the $100 gift card we’ll give away this Thursday, but they are also preparing the Opening Night Dinner hosted by Silicon Labs, before Austin Pictures on the evening of October 1st!  Since Chef Julio is originally from Peru, and so is Jorge Caballero, we decided to ask the Chef to make an amazing multi-course Peruvian feast! Info about the dinner is online here.