by Daniel Hathaway with Mike Telin

For a quarter century, the Cleveland International Classical Guitar Festival has brought some of the brightest stars in the classical guitar world to Cleveland for a weekend of concerts, masterclasses, and lectures. We caught up with Festival founder Armin Kelly on Zoom, who reflected on his 25 years as artistic director.

CC.com: Congratulations on 25 years. What inspired you to start a festival in the year 2000?

Armin Kelly: Even though I’m a dealer in fine classical guitars, my musical training was as a performer.  Although I never really pursued that, I certainly studied hard for 10 or 15 years. 

John Holmquist was then head of the Cleveland Institute of Music’s guitar department — he was a friend, and we started talking. He had a little stipend from CIM to bring artists in, and I was thinking that it’d be nice to start my own small series, maybe a couple of concerts a year. John had a graduate student who was interested in helping with something like this, and we decided to merge our efforts. And so we made a proposal to the then administration at CIM, and they were supportive but wary, as they should have been. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

For a quarter century, Armin Kelly’s Cleveland International Classical Guitar Festival has brought some of the brightest stars in the classical guitar firmament to Cleveland for a weekend of concerts, masterclasses, and lectures.

As founder and artistic director Kelly writes in his 2025 invitation:

This June we look forward to sharing art music: solo and ensemble, old and new with old friends and new from around the USA and beyond. Featured events include: 6 concerts by internationally renowned guitarists and supporting musicians, performance premieres, 6 lectures, 5 master classes, private lessons, a demonstration of fine concert guitars, and the 6th annual James Stroud National Classical Guitar Youth Competition. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

When I telephoned Armin Kelly, founder and artistic director of the Cleveland International Classical Guitar Festival, to hear details of their 23rd trip around the Sun from June 1-4 at the Cleveland Institute of Music, he was deep into proofreading the 40-page festival program — and worrying as all presenters of international artists do about what could possibly happen to his best-laid plans this year.

A sudden resurgence of COVID? A visa snafu? “The volcanic eruption in Mexico scares me — could that disrupt international flights? Ah, the joys and white knuckles of presenting live concerts,” Kelly mused. He added one of the recurring nightmares of an English literature major to the list: he’s just sure there’s a typo or misspelling lurking somewhere undetected in a corner of the program book, only to reveal itself once hundreds of copies have been printed.

Casting those cares aside, Kelly said he’s very proud of that book and its “amazing” program notes by Tom Poore. “His musical insights and human interest comments have been an important part of the festival since the beginning.”

Another thing he’s proud of is the inclusion of the James Stroud International Youth Competition in the Festival for the fourth time. The final round will be held live for the first time on Sunday evening of the festival weekend. [Read more…]