by Daniel Hathaway
After weeks of watching online streams of archived concerts and ad hoc performances from quarantined musicians’ living rooms and bedrooms, it was thrilling to be able to advertise, preview, and report on two real-time webcasts last Friday and Saturday that embraced high production values and addressed the persistent issue of how to compensate musicians for online services. Saturday afternoon’s joint recital by Colin Davin and Jason Vieaux was sponsored by the Cleveland International Classical Guitar Festival, whose 2020 iteration, scheduled for that weekend at the Cleveland Institute of Music, vanished in the wake of the pandemic. [Read more…]
While the Cleveland International Classical Guitar Festival won’t be happening onsite at the Cleveland Institute of Music as usual, that doesn’t mean you should clear the Festival from your calendar entirely.
Aware of the limited repertoire that exists for their combination of instruments, guitarist Colin Davin and harpist Emily Levin got creative. The debut album from the Davin-Levin Duo, 
Live streams, re-broadcasts, digital archives, and YouTube channels — here are some videos of performances to keep you occupied during social distancing.
Any classical musician can play familiar favorites or venture into best-kept secrets, but some instrumentalists are predisposed to a healthy mix. Classical guitarists, with their ability to transcribe almost anything, often highlight famous names while also drawing from a canon dominated by 20th-century Spanish and Latin American composers. They also play new music. Last weekend, Colin Davin converted the sunset light of an autumnal early evening into music with a well-curated program that included all of the above.
This weekend gives concertgoers the chance to hear one guitarist from France who will be making his Cleveland debut, and another from Bay Village who in the past several years, as he told me over the phone, has been re-solidifying his identity as a Clevelander.
Guitarist Colin Davin explored the relationship between old and new on his opening recital of the 19th Annual Cleveland International Guitar Festival on June 6, pairing Steve Reich’s 
For 36 seasons, 
Concerts that feature multiple players on a single instrument come with a risk: the consistency of tone across the evening can come across as a lack of variety. Some instruments, such as the piano, evade this thanks to centuries’ worth of diverse repertoire. Classical guitarists have additional advantages: their community boasts a strong tradition of writing new transcriptions and original works, and each great player has a unique sound. Both of those were in full evidence at last weekend’s Showcase Concert for the Cleveland Classical Guitar Society.