Classical Guitarathon
Saturday, December 7, 2024
7:30 pm
Sundin Music Hall
Hamline University
This event is past.
For the 2024/25 concert season the MGS will present its annual Classical Guitarathon on December 7 at 7:30 pm. If you enjoy variety and supporting local talent, then this is the concert for you! In previous years this concert has been a highlight of the concert season.
Give the gift of a live music experience this holiday season! Your family and friends will be astonished by the masterful performances of Christopher Becknell, David Crittenden, Joe Hagedorn, Jeff Lambert, Dr Maja Radovanlija, Jeffrey Van, Brent Weaver, and the Southwest High School Guitar Orchestra, directed by Jared Waln. The performers’ bios are below.
The program will include music by J.S. Bach, Leo Brouwer, Manuel de Falla, Manuel Ponce, Joaquin Rodrigo, Erik Satie, and Fernando Sor. We hope to see you there!
Performer Bios
David Crittenden (guitar) and Christopher Becknell (fiddle) have been playing as a guitar/fiddle duo since around 2016. They began with a variety of fiddle tunes from the British Isles and North America. Gradually they have incorporated unique arrangements of songs from various popular traditions. More recently, they have added original compositions to their programming. Their CD, Reel Feel, was released in 2021.
David Crittenden has a Doctorate of Musical Arts degree from the University of Georgia where he studied with John Sutherland. He received his Master of Music degree from Ball State University where he studied with Paul Reilly. For ten years he was a member of the Minneapolis Guitar Quartet. David has been an active teacher, performer, and composer in Minnesota for over thirty years. He currently teaches at Minneapolis College, Hamline University, and Bethel University.
Christopher Becknell is a Twin Cities musician who freelances in many musical styles. An accomplished classical and fingerstyle guitarist, he also performs on fiddle in a wide range of styles from Classical, Celtic, Bluegrass and Old-Time to Rock and Hot Club Jazz violin. In addition to performing, he has also been on the faculty at Minneapolis Community and Technical College and runs his own Suzuki Method music program for children and their parents at MacPhail Center for Music and his private studio in Minneapolis. In 2015 Christopher released an album of fingerstyle gospel and folk song arrangements for solo guitar called Just Beyond the River. It has received playtime on The Current, Minnesota Public Radio, and KBEM’s Bluegrass Saturday Morning and is available on CDBaby or iTunes.
Joseph Hagedorn performed with the Minneapolis Guitar Quartet from 1986 until 2023, touring to 30 states, Mexico, China, Germany, Serbia, and Montenegro, Bulgaria, Northern Macedonia and recording six CDs. The Shank-Hagedorn duo has recorded two CDs on the innova and Centaur labels and performed concerts in Colorado, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Indiana, Oregon, California and Mexico. Hagedorn earned a Bachelor of Music degree from Cornell College and a Master of Music degree from the University of Minnesota, studying with Richard Stratton, Christopher Carrington, Nelson Amos, and Jeffrey Van. In 1990, he was the first prize winner at the Guitar Foundation of America International solo competition. Hagedorn has served on the music faculty of the University of Wisconsin-River Falls since 1988, and his solo and concerto appearances have taken him to more than 25 American cities and Canada. He has been heard twice on the nationally broadcast radio program Saint Paul Sunday, with the Minneapolis Guitar Quartet and with the Shank-Hagedorn Duo.
Jeff Lambert grew up in a musical household and played rock music through high school. In college he discovered classical guitar and has made it his career for the last 25 years or so. He has released several classical albums, and he played with the Minneapolis Guitar Quartet for about 10 years. Recently, he has gone back to his roots and joined a couple of rock bands. About a year ago, Jeff was badly bitten by the flamenco bug and is studying it like a maniac. The MGS Classical Guitarathon marks his first time performing flamenco in public.
Maja Radovanlija was born in Belgrade, Yugoslavia (now Serbia), in 1975. She studied and taught classical guitar for almost 20 years in Eastern Europe (Serbia, Montenegro), Vienna (Austria) and Bloomington, IN. Along the way, Maja collaborated with musicians in a variety of genres and became interested in improvised music through Balkan traditional music, jazz, intuitive freely improvised music, and experimental music. Some of the projects and ensembles Maja works with on a regular basis are Szilard Mezéi ensemble, Ensemble Studio6, MM Guitar duo, Linda Chatterton-Maja Radovanlija guitar/flute duo, M.Y. Duo (with YunZhe Lin), MGQ (Minneapolis Guitar Quartet), interdisciplinary projects with improviser and healing artist Molly Sturges, trio with Brothers T (Serbian traditional music), Satu Jiwa improvised music collective and many more.
Guitarist and composer Jeffrey Van has premiered over 50 works for guitar, including Dominick Argento's Letters from Composers, five concertos, and a broad variety of chamber music. He has performed in Carnegie Hall, London's Wigmore Hall, and the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, and as part of Duologue, with flutist Susan Morris De Jong, premiered and recorded commissioned works from more than a dozen composers, including Stephen Paulus, Roberto Sierra, Tania Leon, Michael Daugherty, Libby Larsen and William Bolcom. He is a founding member of The Hill House Chamber Players, with whom he performed for thirty seasons. Van’s compositions are published by E.C. Schirmer, G. Schirmer, Walton, Boosey & Hawkes, Morningstar, earthsongs, Musika Borealis, and Hal Leonard, and the Van-Dixon Duo's recording of his Reflexiones Concertantes (Concerto for Two Guitars and Chamber Orchestra) has been released on the Centaur label.
Jared Waln is an award-winning classical guitarist and music educator in the Twin Cities. Receiving his Master's in music education at the University of St. Thomas, Jared is the director of the award-winning guitar program at Southwest High School, and director of guitar and music professor at the University of St. Thomas. His career is primarily in music education, however he performs with the Minnesota Opera, South Dakota Symphony Orchestra, La Crosse Symphony Orchestra, Lakes Area Music Festival, and musical theaters all around the Twin Cities. Jared was an original teaching artist for the Guitar In Our Schools program with MGS, teaching an adaptive guitar program for special education students at White Bear Lake High School. He has previously performed for the MGS Classical Guitarathon in 2019 and May 2023. When Jared is not teaching or giving concerts, he loves to travel with his wife, eat at new restaurants, go hiking and trail running, and spend time with their two cats, George and Izzie.
Brent Weaver has a Bachelor of Arts degree in music from California State University Sacramento and his Master of Music in Music Education degree from Holy Names College in Oakland, California. He taught classical guitar, Suzuki guitar and early childhood music at MacPhail Center for Music for 23 years. Brent’s teachers include Jose Rey de la Torre, John Majors, Alan Johnston, Chris Kachian, Jim Flegel, Jason Vieux, Eve Weiss and Maja Radovanlija. Brent lives in the Midway neighborhood of St Paul where he teaches a few students, practices Zen Buddhism and the guitar.
