Los Angeles Guitar Quartet – Saturday Concert, Sunday Masterclass
This concert and class are part of the Seattle Classic Guitar Society International Series
Tickets sold separately here, application for the masterclass here
The Grammy Award-winning Los Angeles Guitar Quartet is one of the most multifaceted groups in any genre. The LAGQ is comprised of four uniquely accomplished musicians bringing a new energy to the concert stage with programs ranging from Bluegrass to Bach. They consistently play to sold-out houses world-wide. Their inventive, critically acclaimed transcriptions of concert masterworks provide a fresh look at the music of the past, while their interpretations of works from the contemporary and world-music realms continually break new ground. Programs including Latin, African, Far East, Irish, Folk and American Classics transport listeners around the world in a single concert experience. Winner of a 2005 Grammy Award, their “Guitar Heroes” CD released on Telarc is a brilliant follow-up to their Grammy nominated “LAGQ-Latin”. “Spin” continues their explorations of jazz and contemporary music. “LAGQ: BRAZIL”, including collaborations with vocalist Luciana Souza, was released to rave reviews, and their newest recording of the Rodrigo “Concierto Andaluz” and Sergio Assad’s “Interchange”, written specifically for them, quickly climbed to top spot on the Billboard charts.
Alan Liu – Friday Concert, Saturday Workshop
When named as a 14-year-old teenager to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s “30 Hot Musicians Under 30” in 2016, Canadian guitarist Alan Liu’s talent was recognized by the commentator’s succinct and compelling summation: “Just wow.”
Liu’s past solo engagements include performances of Joaquín Rodrigo’s Fantasia para un gentilhombre with the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, Rodrigo’s Concierto de Aranjuez with the Prince George Symphony Orchestra, Victoria Symphony, and the Juilliard Chamber Orchestra, with which he made his Lincoln Center debut at Alice Tully Hall in 2023. As a recitalist, Liu has been a featured artist at the Architecture of Music, Crown, Montreal, Okanagan, and QinLing International Guitar Festivals. Additionally, he has played concerts for the Philadelphia, Seattle, Toronto, Vancouver, and Wilmington Classical Guitar Societies.
Recent accolades include the Sylva Gelber Music Foundation Award (Canada), first prizes at the Denver, Houston, Indiana, and Mercatali Gorizia (Italy) International Classical Guitar Competitions, and third prize at the Guitar Foundation of America International Concert Artist Competition. Liu is also the first guitarist to win the Juilliard Concerto Competition in over twenty years.
Liu is pursuing a Doctor of Musical Arts degree at the Yale School of Music, where he studies with Ben Verdery. He graduated from the Juilliard School and the Curtis Institute of Music. His mentors include Sharon Isbin, Jason Vieaux, David Starobin, Michael Partington, and Daniel Bolshoy. Liu plays on Augustine Strings, inventor of the nylon strings for guitar, and uses instruments made by Martin Blackwell and Altamira Guitar’s Hanson Yao.
Simon Farintosh – Friday Concert, Saturday Workshop
Simon Farintosh is an award-winning guitarist, composer, and educator based in Victoria,
BC. Named one of CBC’s ‘30 Under 30 Classical Musicians’ in 2023, he is known for his unconventional programming choices, connecting with audiences by integrating the classical guitar with more contemporary musical forms such as electronica and jazz. Simon is currently a music performance instructor at the University of Victoria, where he teaches undergraduate and graduate guitar students.
Simon studied with Dr. Alexander Dunn at the University of Victoria, where he earned his Bachelor of Music Degree in 2018. Simon’s musical pursuits later took him to Milwaukee, WI, where he completed a Master’s Degree at The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee in 2020. Here, he was a student and teaching assistant to Rene Izquierdo, a renowned Cuban virtuoso and revered pedagogue. Currently, Simon is in the finishing stages of a Doctorate of Musical Arts at the University of Toronto, where he is a student of Jorge Caballero and Dr. Jeffrey McFadden.
Simon’s performances have garnered him top awards in various national and international competitions, including 1st Prize at the 2018 Northwest Guitar Festival in Spokane, WA. As a composer, he was recently awarded First Prize in the 2022 Ottawa Guitar Society Composition Competition for his original piece ‘Distant Light.’ He is a six-time recipient of the British Columbia Arts Council Award, and has been a featured performer for organizations such as the Vancouver Classical Guitar Festival, Victoria Conservatory of Music Summer Guitar Intensive, The Classical Guitar Society of Tri-Cities, Madison Classical Guitar Society, Victoria Guitar Society, Ottawa Guitar Society, Guitar Society of Toronto, and Higher Ground Music Festival.
Kulshan Duo – Saturday Concert
Eli Schille-Hudson is a guitarist based in Bellingham, Washington where he heads the guitar studio at Western Washington University. At Western, Eli teaches courses in music theory, guitar history, pedagogy, and fretboard harmony. He also teaches applied lessons and conducts and arranges for the WWU Guitar Ensemble.
Eli has appeared as a soloist and a chamber musician for the Northwest Guitar Festival, the Seattle Classic Guitar Society, the Bellingham Music Club, the Bellingham Chamber Music Society, the Bellingham Festival of Music, the Great Spaces Concert Series, the Lafayette Symphony Guild, and the Lake Union Civic Orchestra. He served as director for the 2023 edition of the Northwest Guitar Festival and has adjudicated competitions and given masterclasses in the United States and Canada—most recently for the Performing Arts B.C. and Canada West festivals.
In addition to his work as a teacher and performer, Eli also remains active as a composer and songwriter. His debut release with collaborator Ross Martinie Eiler, Signs & Seasons (2022), can be heard wherever music is streamed. He completed his education at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music where he took Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees under Maestro Ernesto Bitetti.
Iranian-American flutist Mehrdad Gholami received the presidential award and Iran’s National Elites Foundation scholarship to continue his training at the University of Tehran.
As an orchestral player, he started with Tehran’s ensembles such as Tehran Contemporary Ensemble, Tehran City Hall Orchestra and Tehran Symphony. Later, he came back to work with TSO as their principal flute. Other orchestral appearances include Kaleidoscope Chamber Orchestra (Los Angeles, Disney Hall debut), Fort Worth symphony and McKinney Philharmonic.
A recipient of Susan and Ford Schumann fellowship in 2017, Mehrdad attended Aspen Music Festival, where he served as Aspen Contemporary Ensemble (ACE) flute fellow and studied with Nadine Asin, Mark Sparks and Demarre McGill for three consecutive summers (2017-19). In August 2019, Mehrdad made his solo debut with Aspen Contemporary Ensemble performing Judith Shatin’s Concerto for Flute and Orchestra (Ruah).
Mehrdad’s first solo album was published by his alma mater, University of Tehran, in a joint project with Iran Flute Society. Mehrdad’s efforts in presenting, performing, and publishing new Iranian music has led to a growth of compositions for flute by Iranian composers and similar projects inspired by his “Iran Flute Project”. His most recent CD was published by Mahoor Publication inside Iran, and it is available on all online platforms.In August 2023, Mehrdad’s dissertation was named the winner of National Flute Association’s Graduate Research Competition.
Dr. Mehrdad Gholami is the Assistant Professor of Flute at Western Washington University and coordinator of the woodwinds area.
Mischa Yolleck – Warmup/Technique
Mischa Yolleck is a Seattle-based classical guitarist originally from Montclair, New Jersey. Born to a musical family, he began cello lessons at the age of six. He began his classical guitar studies with Brett Grigsby while an undergrad at Skidmore College. He has since studied with esteemed performers and pedagogues, including Esteban Espinoza (Chile), Ruben Gonzalez Ávila (Dominican Republic / Cuba), and Mark Delpriora. He currently studies with Michael Partington.
Mischa was awarded first prize in the 2022 Northwest Guitar Competition and has performed as a soloist and chamber musician in concert, including as an invited guest to the 2019 International Guitar Festival of the Dominican Republic, and in benefit concerts for the Essex County Summer Player Orchestra, the West Seattle Food Bank, and at the St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Plainfield, New Jersey. He has participated in masterclasses with David Russell, Meng Su, Dale Kavanaugh, the Brazilian Guitar Duo, Jorge Luis Zamora, and Andrew Zohn.
Mark Hilliard Wilson – Ensemble director
Mark Hilliard Wilson has an engaging approach to teaching and programing concerts that draws from the deep well of history and a desire to relate contemporary interests to universal themes. He founded the Seattle Guitar Orchestra in 2000 and became the cathedral guitarist at St. James Cathedral in Seattle 2006. His compositions are published by Seconda Prattica and performed widely. Wilson is an in-demand director of Guitar orchestras across North America. He has written numerous works and commissioned works from Taiwo Adegoke and Oleg Boyko. At the 2023 Northwest Guitar Festival in Bellingham, Wa. he led the Seattle Guitar Orchestra and festival players in the world premiere of Secret Life Of Trees, commissioned and dedicated to the him and the Seattle Guitar Orchestra. In 2023 Seattle Guitar Orchestra released The Music of Taiwo Adegoke, Changing the canon of the classical guitar with music from Nigeria.
In 2024 Wilson worked with Scribe Studios to release a 6 set of music videos based on Wilson’s collaboration with Ukrainian composer in exile Oleg Boyko. Wilson worked with the Seattle Classic Guitar Society to commission a work called Secret Life of Trees for the Seattle Guitar Orchestra. Further performances were on KING FM Northwest Focus Live and then the work was recorded at St James Cathedral with additional footage at Chuckanut mountain in Bellingham.
January of 2025 Wilson premiered Reflections and a Glacier and Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Glacier commissioned by guitarist Mark Wilson.
Ryan Ayers, Ensemble Composer and Friday Workshop
“And Ryan – who possesses a classical technique which he cleverly puts into his steel-string guitar’s service – is definitely a gifted and talented musician whose musical world is as poetic as it is personal. ”
— Roland Dyens, Guitarist and Composer
Ryan Ayers is a composer and solo guitarist; and, while his music is classical in nature, an evening in concert with Ryan is anything but traditional. Each of his original pieces feels approachable for a modern audience, and Ryan’s masterful storytelling rounds out the experience, giving deeper meaning to each song he plays. In this workshop he will share insights into the creative process of composing for the guitar, guiding participants on a journey to unearth and develop their unique musical voice. Ryan will share the methods, tricks, and systems that have helped him write guitar compositions that resonate with personal authenticity.
Michael Millham, Friday Workshop
Maximizing internal and external dynamic range through right hand mechanics: a brief seminar for classical guitar.
In addition to excellent tone quality, an extensive dynamic range is critical to effective music performance on the classical guitar—especially when considering the contrasting and fastidiously noted dynamic indications in much of today’s music for the instrument and genre.
Workshop participants will gain a neuromechanical understanding of global dynamic range on the guitar, contrasted mentally and physically with velocity technique to bring out specific voices and lines on any string at will. All players will learn how to selectively demonstrate 6 specific tiers of overall dynamic range in the practice room—with the goal of easily playing 4 objectively clear dynamic tiers in live performance for an audience, at will, with consistent tone. Clinic participants will also learn how to bring out lines on any string—either separately, or in conjunction with overall dynamic changes—with a high degree of automaticity, using straightforward mental cues.
An in-demand teacher, Michael maintains studios at Gonzaga University and Spokane Falls Community College, and is an active clinician. A regular soloist and ensemble player, he has been a featured performer for numerous regional festivals including the Northwest Guitar Festival, the Northwest Bach Festival, the Festival at Sandpoint (in concerto work with the Spokane Symphony Orchestra), and Northwest Folklife’s guitar showcase in McCaw hall, among others.
Michael has been profiled in the magazine Acoustic Guitar and is a contributor emeritus to the same, also having written for Guitar Teacher and Play Guitar! magazines. Michael has worked as either an alpha/beta testing endorser or performing artist for Elixir strings, Lowden Guitars, Hill Guitars, L.R. Baggs electronics and AER amps among other companies. His duo (with his wife, vocalist Keleren Millham) has given over 2,000 performances at venues ranging from wine bars and house concerts to radio shows, theaters, universities, and festivals—along with releasing 3 CDs featuring their own compositions. Michael is a graduate of the Lionel Hampton School of Music-University of Idaho, and the host of KPBX/Spokane Public Radio’s popular weekly show “The Guitar Hour.”
March 20-22, 2026 