by Mike Telin
The presentation of young and emerging artists has always been a priority for the Cleveland International Classical Guitar Festival. And for Festival followers it’s an opportunity to be made aware of young guitarists, and then watch them mature as musicians.
In 2017 CICGF introduced Cleveland audiences to Hao Yang (China). “[She] attended two years ago as a student [and] impressed everyone with the way that she played in the master classes,” Festival founder and artistic director Armin Kelly recalled during an interview that year with this publication.
The best chamber music performances are the ones where the synergy of the players is so captivating that you simply sit back, relax, and let yourself get lost in the music. Such was the case when the Patterson-Sutton Duo — Kimberly Patterson (cello) and Patrick Sutton (guitar) — made a return visit to the Cleveland International Classical Guitar Festival on Sunday afternoon, June 4.
On Thursday, June 1 at the Cleveland Institute of Music’s Mixon Hall, guitarist Jason Vieaux opened the 2023 Cleveland International Classical Guitar Festival with a sparkling display, mixing assured technique with an impressively broad guitar ethos. In a program stretching from Albéniz to Metheny, Vieaux acquitted himself with ease and authority, setting a high bar for every festival recital to follow.
You’d think that two instruments that create their sound by plucking strings might not provide enough variety to sustain interest over the course of a whole program, but guitarist Colin Davin and harpist Emily Levin have news for you.
Over the past few years Petra Poláčková has enthralled audiences at the Cleveland International Classical Guitar Festival, and on Sunday afternoon, June 5, at the Cleveland Institute of Music’s Kulas Hall, the young Czech musician demonstrated why she has become a Festival favorite.
Anyone who has been paying attention to the world of contemporary chamber music during the past twenty years will recognize the names of flutist Molly Barth and guitarist Dieter Hennings — together known as Duo Damiana. 
The guitar is an instrument that can travel anywhere and play just about anything. Listeners got the chance to take in some of that variety at the Cleveland International Classical Guitar Festival, which returned in person to the Cleveland Institute of Music last weekend. Original arrangements and inventive pairings — pieces with harp, cello, and more — added to the schedule, but a sense of what makes a performance “classical” emerged as well.
On Thursday June 2 in Kulas Hall at the Cleveland Institute of Music, Drew Henderson (Canada) opened the Cleveland International Classical Guitar Festival with a program of Baroque and Romantic music.
One by one the guest list for a recent Zoom conversation grew, until it included — in order of appearance — a guitarist and a harpist, two dogs, and a composer.