Guitar Trek to Host Masterclass at Elder Hall, 16 August

Following their successful appearance at the University of Adelaide's Elder Hall Lunchtime concert, the highly acclaimed ensemble Guitar Trek are preparing to give guitar students the benefit of their collective experience and knowledge on guitar playing and performing in a Masterclass session on Saturday 16 August at 11am in the Elder Hall.

Head of guitar Oliver Fartach Naini has said that this particular Masterclass will be a little different from the usual as it will include secondary school students as well as those from the Elder Conservatorium. There will also be an audience observing.

Whilst the format of the class will be essentially flexible, it will feature students performing selected pieces upon which Guitar Trek members, Timothy Kain, Minh Le Hoang, Bradley Kunda and Matt Withers, will offer advice and feedback. There will also be a brief question and answer session.

The advantage for students and interested members of the public in hearing first hand about the intricacies of guitar performance and technique from professional musicians, especially those who are acknowledged as the country's finest guitar quartet, will be invaluable for budding professional musicians and amateurs alike.

Now a much loved part of the Australian music scene, the dynamic Australian quartet Guitar Trek was formed in 1987 specifically to launch a guitar family project, which has rapidly attained the status of a major new direction in the guitar's continuing new development into the 21st century.

With new Australian music at its heart, the group's fresh, innovative and popular approach to repertoire has taken it across all musical boundaries, breaking the sound barrier between different styles and tastes in the process. The new music of contemporary Australians rubs shoulders with Led Zeppelin, JS Bach, music of the Spanish masters, unbuttoned Brahms, the Beatles, the Greats of the Renaissance, George Gershwin, the Gypsy Kings and the sensuous rhythms of modern day Brazil.

Audiences and critics alike have readily acknowledged the outstanding innovative significance of Guitar Trek's work and the group has been still more highly acclaimed for the extraordinary energy, assurance and musical quality of its playing. "The instruments were played with magnificent sensitivity", enthused one critic, "and the transcriptions and arrangements were brilliant. As for the players, their individual and collective quality, taken with their imaginative musical leap into the unknown, has given chamber music in Australia a new dimension."

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