The Winners of the 5th "Andrés Segovia" Competition for Young Guitarists

	27 May 2008 The 5th "Andrés Segovia" European Competition for Young Guitarists finished on Saturday, the 24th of May with the Award winners' concert.
The awards of The 5th "Andrés Segovia" European Competition for Young Guitarists are: I Category: First Prize: Lovro Peretic (Croatia) and Tuur Segers (Belgium) Second Prize: was not awarded Third Prize: Niels Pfeffer (Germany) Fourth Prize: Patrick Wolf (Germany) Fifth Prize: Sören Alexander Golz (Germany) Scholarships: Internationales Pfingstseminar Koblenz Guitar Festival: Todor Manojlovic (Germany) Bergisches Gitarrenfestival: Felix Spindler (Germany) II Category: First Prize: Juraj Majstorovic (Croatia) and Samuel Toro Pérez (Austria) Second Prize: was not awarded Third Prize: Vilmos Haraszti (Hungary) Fourth Prize: Mariusz Kozlowski (Poland) Fifth Prize: Timotej Kosovinc Zupanèiè (Slovenia) and Jakob Schmidt (Germany) Scholarships: Forum Gitarre Wien: Mariusz Kozlowski (Poland) Internationales Gitarrensymposium Iserlohn: Juraj Majstorovic (Croatia) III Category: First Prize: Ihar Dzedusenka (Belarus) Second Prize: Katarzyna Milczarek (Poland) Third Prize: Boadan Mihailescu (Romania) Fourth Prize: Sanel Redzic (Bosnia/Herzegovina) Fifth Prize: Jure Cerkovnik (Slovenia) Scholarships: Gitarrenfestspiele Nürtingen: Tomasz Fechner (Poland) Internationales Pfingstseminar Koblenz Guitar Festival: Georg Stettinger Austria International Guitar Festival Naxos (Greece): Bogdan Mihailescu (Romania) EGTA Award: Jakob Schmidt (Germany)

Sinaia International Guitar Festival's Awards

Anniversary edition:
25 years of guitar at Sinaia

The Sinaia Internationa Guitar Festival is one of the oldest guitar Festivals from Europe. For 25 years Sinaia hosted important names of guitar worldwide and became the core of Romanian classical guitar.

The XIIIth anniversary edition of Sinaia Festival was a remembrance of the old times of classical guitar in Romania, starting from Eduard Pamfil, Stefan Freischberger, Nicolae Epureanu, Adrian Ionescu, Simion Sihota, Ion Mihaescu, Constantin Mitulescu and Mihai Babii. Figures like Dumitru Capoianu, Liviu Georgescu, Constantin Andrei, Catalin Stefanescu Patrascu, Horia Sabin Dragoi, Eugen Mang, Constantin Stanciu, Corneliu George Voicescu, Ionut Dorobantu, Ionut Grigore, Gheorghe Petrovan, Ovidiu Atanasiu etc. were remembered with gratitude for their important contribution in founding and developing classical guitar school in Romania.

This anniversary edition was also a point of looking to the future of Romanian classical guitar, a brightly future with the help of the Romanian teachers and performers like Liviu Georgescu, Catalin Stefanescu Patrascu, Eugen Mang, Constantin Andrei, Aurelian Andrei, Maxim Belciug, Corneliu George Voicescu, Gheorghe Petrovan, George Mitrache, Victor Rosu, Ionel Tiganus, Ovidiu Atanasiu. From their masterful hands arised the young generation of guitar teachers and performers: Adrian Andrei, George Popescu, Mihai Cojocaru, Stan Zamfirescu, Ionut Zamfirescu, Georgeta Zamfirescu, Mircea Gogoncea, Teodora Zait, Ionut Dorobantu, Stefan Trifan, George Muntean, Istvan Beke, Andrei Turcu and many others.

During this edition of Sinaia Festival, Liviu Georgescu, the president of Romanian Guitar Foundation and the director of Sinaia International Guitar Festival, reunited a great part of these important classical guitar figures and created the context for all the guitar fans to spend a week of guitar in Sinaia.

During this week, we were enchanted by the guitar recitals of Carlo Marchione (Italy), Groningen Guitar Duo - Remco de Haan & Erik Westerhof (Holland), Gabriel Bianco (Frace), Mir Ali (U.S.A.), Ioana Gandabur (Canada), Georgeta, Stan and Ionut Zamfirescu (Romania).

The awards of Sinaia International Guitar Festival are as fallow:

D Category:

First Prize: Aleksander Wilgos (Grodzisk Maz, Polland)

Second Prize: Tudor Niculescu-Mizil (Bucharest, Romania)

Third Prize: Dimitris Dekavalas (London, England)

Stipendium - Transilvania International Guitar Festival: Cristina Ciortan and Bogdan Mihailescu (Bucharest, Romania)

F.R.C. Special Prize: Radu Valcu and Costin Soare (Bucharest, Romania)

C Category:

First Prize: Bogdan Mihailescu and Eduard Leata (Bucharest, Romania)

Second Prize: Andrei Serban Dragusanu (Bucharest, Romania)

Third Prize: was not awarded

F.R.C. Special Prize: Mihai Iancu Popescu (Drobeta Tr. Severin, Romania)

B Category:

First Prize: Sergiu Hudrea (Cluj-Napoca, Romania)

Second Prize: Iuliana Nitu (Bucharest, Romania) and Radu Ionescu (Craiova, Romania)

Third Prize: Patricia Nicula and Diana Moldovan (Cluj-Napoca, Romania)

A Category:

First Prize: Alecu Ciapi (Cluj-Napoca, Romania)

Second Prize: Ioan Oprisan (Bucharest, Romania)

Third Prize: Bogdan Stefan Marin (Bucharest, Romania)

F.R.C. Special Prize: Alexandra Albeanu Craiova, Romania), Cristian Kaznovski (Bucharest, Romania) and Daniela Mihaela Costache (Focsani, Romania)

Sinaia International Guitar Festival 2008

Anniversary edition:
25 years of guitar at Sinaia

The thirteenth edition of the International Festival of Classical Guitar Sinaia - Romania will take place from 5 to 10 May.

1. International contest
2. Contests of young guitarists under the age of 17.
3. Master class
4. Recitals
5. Guitar exhibition - Constantin Dumitriu
6. Gala Concert "Five o'clock" at the Castle

Recitals
Recitals will be held by master from above in the Symposium concert hall of New Montana Hotel, every evening from 21.00, as folows: :
Carlo Marchione (Italy), Groningen Guitar Duo (Remco de Haan & Erik Westerhof) – Holland, Gabriel Bianco (Frace), Mir Ali (U.S.A.), Ioana Gandabur (Canada), Georgeta, Stan and Ionut Zamfirescu (Romania).

Exhibition and guitar show room held by Maestro Constantin Dumitriu - Romania

Gala Concert “Five o’clock at the Castle" will take place on Sunday, 10th of May at 17.00 o’clock at the “Foisor Castle”.

Other guests & jury:
Voicu Enachescu, Horia Sabin Dragoi, Constantin Andrei, Eugen Mang, Stefan Trifan, Beke Isthvan, Mihai Cojocaru.

Master classes
Simultaneously with the contest a master class will be held by great masters of International fame: Carlo Marchione (Italy), Groningen Guitar Duo (Remco de Haan & Erik Westerhof) – Holand, Mir Ali (U.S.A.), Gabriel Bianco (France), Ioana Gandrabur (Canada), Rosen Balkansski, Dimitar Doychinov (Bulgaria), Catalin Stefanescu-Patrascu and Liviu Georgescu (Romania).

Alba Guitar Festival

The Second Edition of Spring Guitar Festival from Alba Iulia will take place in May, between the 16 – 18th, 2008.
The Opening Festivity will be on the 16th of May at 09:00.

All the participants will enjoy three great recitals, each evening at 19:00 o’clock at The Roman Catholic Cathedral in Alba Iulia.

The participation fee is 20 euros. The candidates will anounce the organizers the day they arrive.

There are two possibilities of accommodation for the candidates: to pay 10 euros/night and stay at a hostel or pay 35 euros/night and stay at an 3*** Hotel.

The masterclass fee is 15 Euros for one session (aprox. 30 min), 30 Euros for two sessions and 40 Euros for four sessions.

Classical Guitar Maker Constantin Dumitriu

Constantin Dumitriu discovered the guitar in 1987 under the directions of Eduard Pamfil. Advised by the same great guitarist and professor, he begins constructing the instruments which later will travel along and across Europe.

In 2003 he travels in Sweden to meet Alejandro Van der Horst, student of the famous luthier Antonio Marin Montero, event which will definitely determine the development in constructing his instruments.

The professionalism, the importance of details and his creative passion, the willing to innovate and to experiment new techniques, those are the definitive attributes of the DUMITRIU classical guitars, used by great guitarist from the entirely world, like Hubert Kappel, Marcin Dylla, Thomas Kirchhoff, Dale Kavanagh, Stan Zamfirescu or Maxim Belciug.

World Autism Day 2008

De anul acesta, 2 Aprilie va fi Ziua Mondiala a Autismului, in lume existand peste 60 de milioane de persoane ce sufera de autism, cea mai mare parte regasindu-se in tarile subdezvoltate din Africa si Asia.

In Cluj-Napoca, aceasta zi a fost marcata printr-o campanie de informare, initiata de singura speranta a parintilor copiilor ce sufera de autism.

Milena Pruna este presedintele Asociatiei Autism Transilvania, care a fost infiintata in 2006. Asociatia ofera servicii de consultanta si de suport pentru familiile cu copii autisti, precum si programe de terapie comportamentala a copiilor autisti. In prezent, asociatia poate oferi terapie doar pentru o mica parte din cererea pe care o are, fiind una din putinele cu acest profil din tara si singura din Cluj, iar spatiul in care functioneaza fiind restrans.

Astazi, membrii Asociatiei, voluntarii si cativa parinti au iesit in strada si au impartit pliante cu informatii despre aceasta boala. In materialul video, Milena vorbeste si despre manifestarea autismului, despre simptomele care ar trebui sa puna niste semne de intrebare parintilor.

Autismul este o boala caracterizata prin scaderea capacitatii de a comunica si de a interactiona pe plan social, prin comportament stereotip si repetitiv.

Mai multe informatii despre aceasta boala puteti afla chiar de la Milena Pruna, din materialul video, dar si adresandu-i intrebari la autismtransilvania@yahoo.com.

How To Tell The differences Between Hand Made and Factory Made Classical Guitars

By Ervin Somogyi

The following article first appeared in American Lutherie magazine no.85/spring 2006, which is published by the Guild of American Luthiers". Guitars International wishes to thank Ervin Somogyi and the Editors of American Lutherie for allowing us to reprint its contents. (Reproduction of this article in any form - in whole or in part - without the expressed written consent of the Guild of American Luthiers is prohibited). It may seem strange to some readers to find an article touching on metaphysics in a magazine on guitar making; it will also seem perfectly appropriate to others that such a topic be included. The metaphysics of the guitar has to do with "that extra something" that's intangible and possibly even indefinable. Some guitars have it. Some don't. It is variously called "the magic," "the soul," "the allure," and so on, even though these terms can be elastic and elusive. None of this is exactly news to anyone who knows the guitar. I've thought about this. It seems to me that there are at least two components to "the magic." The first one has to do with whether a guitar has sufficient "extra oomph" (by whatever standard one wishes to define it: tone, warmth, exquisiteness, subtlety, etc.) to warrant one's falling in love with it. No mystery in this. This happens at the level of performance/attributes that can eventually be discerned and identified, even if at first the instrument seems magically beyond words. It really isn't: the words can/will sooner or later be found. The second component is surprisingly interesting. It is that the player is a participant in the guitar at the level of quality, whether he or she knows it or not, or even wants to be or not. How is this so? Well, the fact is that what one sees and hears and thinks is as much a question of how one thinks -- and one's level of development, education, and imaginative capacity -- as it has to do with the qualities of the object that is perceived. By this I do not mean seeing imaginary qualities; I mean being open to appreciating the same kind of intangible yet real qualities that a book might contain and which would be totally unavailable to someone who cannot read. This is not a tricky intellectual concept. It is no different from saying that a beginning-level (fill in the occupation of your choice here) will not have yet become as perceptive, experienced, discerning, and knowledgeable a person as someone who had been doing the work for some time. Metaphysically, the potential knowledge, attitudes, and skill levels already exist "out there" somewhere, in the ether of possibility, waiting to be accessed and taken on by the person in question. It's just that he or she just hasn't gotten there... yet. A well-made handmade guitar, then, from even a semisophisticated point of view, would be seen as exactly what it is: a repository of embedded or "frozen" information. By this I mean the skill, time, patience, effort, energy, experience, acquired wisdom, intent, judgment, intelligence (including emotional intelligence), and design work put into it by the maker. That's the guitar's soul. If you are uncomfortable with this term, try value, skilled man-hours, or a lifetime of work experience; they fit equally well, although in my opinion these are narrower. Either way, the well-made guitar contains these things, even though they might not be seen with the naked eye. They are there nonetheless because the maker put them in there. By the same token: what of a stock, ordinary guitar? It is something that contains much less actual information because so much less actual effort or information has been expended in its production. The main effort will have been expended, instead, into organizing the tooling and the work force. In purely mechanical terms, the work of creating such a guitar has been automated, made full of repetitive operations, and done by workers who are forbidden to vary or change the smallest thing. And that is such a guitar's soul, too. These things are obvious to some people, but not so obvious to others; guitars that look and sound profoundly different to members of the former group will look and sound pretty much alike to the latter. And this, really, is the crux of the matter for most of us: items that are rich in contained information or quality, and goods that carry little or no information or quality, often look very much the same on the surface level. This is just as true in a guitar store as it is, in its own way, at a debutante ball, a used car lot, or on the floor of Congress. But there is a way of knowing whether such things are comparable or not -- and it's a satisfactory way. For thousands of years, Knowing Things has been done with reference to the traditional hierarchical structure/existence of things in the world. Here, in normal everyday life, everything is understood as ``belonging' to either the mineral, vegetable, animal, or human/spiritual realm. And possibilities of knowing are set within each level or category. Bear with me a second here. E. F. Schumacher, in his book A Guide for the Perplexed, uses the example of an ordinary book to illustrate this point. To wit: to a mineral, a book would be absolutely meaningless. To a plant, the same book might signify merely a shady area in contrast with a sunny one. To a frog, the book might signify a flat surface to sit on, or a color. To an illiterate savage the book might signify nothing more than something to burn for heat or material to roll cigarettes with. But to a literate person, the book can be full of knowledge and insight. Same book; totally different experiences of it depending on the observer and the level he/she/it is operating at. Just so with the guitar: some people will recognize that certain guitars, as man-made objects, contain more information than others. Being information-rich makes these guitars more valuable to any person operating within a set of perceptual values that are informed by a capacity to appreciate intangibles -- such as symbolic language, which every article in this magazine is made up of, and use of which is the cornerstone of human intelligence. Without literacy, as I suggested before, this entire issue of American Lutherie would probably be seen as great cigarette-rolling material. Or worse. Many other individuals, however, will see all guitars as containing basically the same amount of information (i.e., same amount of materials, same parts and components, same basic look) modified principally by category (solid top, upgrade to rosewood, etc.), quantity (more extensive inlay work), accessories package (comes with a factory-installed internal pickup), and membership card (it's a Martin), and they will be unable to understand different levels of inherent value outside those assigned by marketers and market forces. Unless there's openness of mind somewhere along the line, there will be no more possibility of meaningful discussion between members of these groups than there would be between, say, an NRA member and a gun control advocate. Or, to use a more pertinent example, imagine a discussion between an art lover and someone who doesn't "get" that a work of art could be worth more than the bronze, marble, clay, or pigment and canvas it contains, plus a certain per-hour rate for the time it took to make it. There are people like that. I know; I've met them. They aren't necessarily bad, but they're simply people you can't talk with. Source: Guitars International