The University of Arizona School of Music and the Tucson Guitar Society are
proud to present the First International Tucson Guitar Festival. The festival
will open with the Beeston Guitar Competition on Sunday, November 8, featuring
members of the nationally acclaimed UA guitar studio headed by Professor Thomas
Patterson, whose graduates have gone on to win major competitions and have
succeeded as professional musicians and teachers. On Wednesday, November 11,
renowned Spanish guitarist Rafael Aguirre Miñarro will present a concert.
Miñarro made his solo debut at age 16 and has gone on to perform in venues in
Europe and abroad. The festival will close with the world famous guitar duo,
Sérgio and Odair Assad performing on Thursday and Friday, November 12 and 13.
The virtuosic Grammy-winning brothers have shared the stage with musical icons
such as Yo-Yo Ma and Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg, presenting avant-garde works, in
addition to their masterful performances of traditional repertoire. It is an
event you will not want to miss!

Masterclasses by these renowned artists will be offered during the week of the
festival. For more information, please contact Professor Tom Patterson,
rtp@email.arizona.edu or 520-621-1157.

Festival Schedule

First International Tucson Guitar Festival
Sunday-Thursday, November 8-13

Beeston Guitar Competition Finals
Sunday, November 8, 2:30 p.m.
Holsclaw Hall, , 7, 5

Rafael Aguirre Miñarro, guitar
Wednesday, November 11, 7:00 p.m.
Holsclaw Hall, , 20, 18

The Assad Brothers, Grammy winning guitar duo
Sérgio Assad and Odair Assad
Thursday and Friday, November 12 and 13, 7:00 p.m.
Holsclaw Hall, , 25, 20
(Sponsored by John and Joan D'Addario)


Sergio and Odair Assad
Brazilian-born brothers Sergio and Odair Assad have set the benchmark for all
other guitarists by creating a new standard of guitar innovation, ingenuity and
expression. Their exceptional artistry and uncanny ensemble playing come from
both a family rich in Brazilian musical tradition and from studies with the
best guitarists in South America. In addition to setting new performance
standards, the Assads have played a major role in creating and introducing new
music for two guitars. Their virtuosity has inspired a wide range of composers
to write for them, among them Astor Piazzolla, Terry Riley, Radamés Gnattali,
Marlos Nobre, Nikita Koshkin, Roland Dyens, Jorge Morel, Edino Krieger and
Francisco Mignone. Now Sergio Assad is adding to their repertoire by composing
music for the duo and for various musical partners both with Symphony Orchestra
and in recitals. They have worked extensively with such renowned artists as
Yo-Yo Ma, Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg, Fernando Suarez Paz, Paquito D?Rivera,
Gidon Kremer and Dawn Upshaw.

The Assads began playing the guitar together at an early age and went on to
study for seven years with guitar/lutenist Monina Távora, a disciple of
Andrés Segovia. Their international career began with a major prize at the
1979 Young Artists Competition in Bratislava. Odair is based in Brussels where
he teaches at École Supérieure des Arts, and Sérgio resides in San Francisco
and in Paris. He is on the faculty at the San Francisco Conservatory.

The Assads' repertoire includes original music composed by Sérgio Assad and his
re-workings of folk and jazz music as well as Latin music of almost every style.
Their standard classical repertoire includes transcriptions of the great Baroque
keyboard literature of Bach, Rameau and Scarlatti; and adaptations of works by
such diverse figures as Gershwin, Ginastera and Debussy. Their touring programs
are always a compelling blend of styles, periods and cultures.

The Assads are also recognized as prolific recording artists, primarily for the
Nonesuch and GHA labels. In 2001, Nonesuch Records released ?Sérgio and
Odair Assad Play Piazzolla,? which later won a Latin Grammy. Their seventh
Nonesuch recording, released in the fall of 2007, is called "Jardim Abandonado"
after a piece by Antonio Carlos Jobim. It was nominated for Best Classical Album
and Sérgio went on to win the Latin Grammy for his composition, ?Tahiiyya Li
Oussilina.?

A Nonesuch collaboration with Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg in 2000 featured a
collection of pieces based on traditional and Gypsy folk tunes from around the
world. The Assads and Ms. Salerno-Sonnenberg continue to tour together,
displaying unique chemistry, humor and stunning virtuosity. In 2003, Sérgio
Assad wrote a triple concerto for this trio that has been performed with the
orchestras of São Paulo, Seattle and the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra. In the
summer of 2004, Sérgio and Odair arranged a very special tour featuring three
generations of the Assad Family. The family presented a wide variety of
Brazilian music featuring their father Jorge Assad on the mandolin and the
voice of mother Angelina Assad. GHA Records has released a live recording and a
DVD of the Assad Family live at Brussels? Palais des Beaux-Arts.

The Assad Brothers? collaboration with Yo-Yo Ma is ongoing. In 2003 the
Brazilian record ?Obrigado Brazil? was released, featuring Rosa Passos,
Egberto Gismonti and Cyro Baptista. Sérgio arranged several of the works on
the disc, which captured a Grammy in 2004.  A world tour followed, culminating
in live concerts at the opening of Carnegie Hall?s Zankel Hall and another
Sony release of the live concert. In the fall of 2008, the Assads are featured
on Yo-Yo?s chart topping release, ?Songs of Joy and Peace,? which
features guest artists as diverse as James Taylor and Dave Brubeck. In the
piece ?Familia? Yo-Yo plays Sérgio?s composition, featuring mother,
Angelina Assad, sister Badi and children Clarice, Rodrigo and Carolina.

In the 2006-2007 season, the Assad Brothers performed Joaquin Rodrigo?s
?Concierto Madrigal for Two Guitars? and Sérgio?s arrangement of the
?Four Seasons of Buenos Aires? with the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the
Hollywood Bowl. In 2007, and again in 2008, the brothers toured with the Turtle
Island Quartet in a program called ?String Theory.? In the winter of 2008,
the Assads curated a guitar festival at the 92nd St. Y in New York, and then
toured with some of those artists in a project called ?Brazilian Guitar
Festival? featuring Badi Assad, Romero Lubambo and Celso Machado. In February
2009, the Los Angeles Guitar Quartet is premiering a new concerto for orchestra
and four guitars at the Southwest Guitar Festival in San Antonio, Texas.
Upcoming projects include a tour with Lebanese singer, Christiane Karam,
percussionist Jamey Haddad and composer/pianist Clarice Assad in a project
entitled, ?Da Volta as Raizes? (Back to Our Roots). The music will explore
the brothers? Middle Eastern heritage. The Assads will also be featured
performers on James Newton Howard?s soundtrack of the upcoming Universal
Pictures movie, ?Duplicity,? directed by Tony Gilroy and starring Julia
Roberts, to be released in the Spring 2009.

Rafael Aguirre Miñarro
Rafael Aguirre Miñarro, born in Málaga in 1984, began his musical studies at
the age of seven at the Málaga Conservatory. He was trained by Teresa Garcia
de Candido, Manuel Jesus Perez Vela, Miguel Tojar and Javier Chamizo, always
receiving the best marks. He attended numerous master classes where he met
guitarists with worldwide reputation, such as Joaquin Clerch, Leo Brouwer,
David Russell, Manuel Barrueco, Pavel Steidl, Marco Socias, Roberto Aussel,
Costas Cotsiolis, Thomas Müller-Pering, Ricardo Gallen, Alex Garrobe, Alirio
Diaz, Ivan Rijos and Jean Maurice Mourat.

When he was 16 years old he made his debut as a soloist with the Young
Philharmonic of Málaga performing ?Concierto de Aranjuez,? and he gave
concerts in well-known concert halls in Morocco and Spain (Teatro Villamarta,
Teatro Cervantes, Centre Moulay Rachid of Casablanca,  Instituto Cervantes of
Tanger). Recently he gave concerts, conducted by Mark-Andreas Schlingensiepen,
with the symphony orchestra of the Robert-Schumann-Hochschule in the Tonhalle
in Düsseldorf and made his debut in Berlin in the Akademie der Wissenschaften
Berlin- Brandenburg (Academy of Scientists Berlin Brandenburg) playing in the
Leibniz Saal and in the Spanish Embassy. He has played with the Almeria
Symphony Orchestra and the Andalusian Youth Orchestra under the baton of
Michael Thomas.

Thomas H. Beeston Memorial Guitar Competition
The final round of the Seventh Annual Thomas H. Beeston Memorial Guitar
Competition will feature four finalists, chosen from the semi-final round held
the previous day. Each finalist will perform a 20-minute program in this public
recital venue.

Thomas Beeston believed that music is our common denominator and that it has the
power to heal, to inspire and to transform. It is in this spirit of heart-felt
music that we celebrate the guitar and his memory. Highly regarded as a
guitarist and luthier, Tom was a leading figure in the evolution of Tucson as
an international center for the classical guitar. He was a friend and mentor to
Norman Douglas Sholin, founder of the UA Guitar Program, as well as Sholin?s
first classical guitar teacher. Thomas served as an advisor to the UA guitar
program until his death in 1999.