Hill Country Classical Guitar Ensemble Festival and Competition
2024 Hill Country Classical Guitar Ensemble Festival and Competition
April 5th & 6th
This festival will be held at the beautiful Texas State University – San Marcos campus. This is a national competition and is open to guitar ensembles of middle school, high school, college level and independent studios to bring like-minded individuals together to celebrate guitar and strive for excellence in performance. These performances will be adjudicated by Tony Morris (Classical Guitar Alive), Joseph Palmer (TXGQ) and Jay Kacherski (TXGQ).
Beginning at 7:00 PM on the evening of April 5th, Sophie Reel and Marina De La Cruz-Medrano (students of festival director, Mark Cruz), will perform a short program of music arranged for two guitars. They will be followed by the Texas Guitar Quartet featuring Isaac Bustos, Alejandro Montiel, Joseph Palmer and Jay Kacherski. This concert will be held at the Texas State University School of Music Recital Hall.
Saturday, April 6th, will be the day of the competition held in the TXST School of Music Recital Hall. Also on this day, there will be a vendor fair and masterclasses by Alejandro Montiel, Isaac Bustos.
Closing the festival on the evening of the 6th, acoustic guitar virtuoso, Andy McKee, will dazzle us with his beautiful playing, extended techniques and marvelous compositions followed by our awards ceremony. This concert and awards ceremony will be held at Texas State University’s, Evans Auditorium at 7:30 PM.
Check-in for the competition will begin on Saturday morning at 8:00 AM (April 6) and remain open until 10:30 am. Competition performances will begin at 11:30 am and continue throughout the day until around 4:00 PM.
No more institutions will be accepted after twenty-two. If we reach this limit, we will notify on this website. Each institution may enter no more than three groups.
Rules:
• There are no set pieces for the competition, although, programming with contrasting works are expected and will be one of the facets to be evaluated – along with tuning, unified time, tone quality, balance, mix, interpretation, dynamics, musicality, presentation, etc.
• Middle school students must prepare a program of six to nine minutes (must not exceed. Include any change of chair configuration into your time, if applicable).
• High school students must prepare a program of seven to ten minutes (must not exceed. Include any change of chair configuration into your time, if applicable).
• College students must prepare a program of twelve to fifteen minutes (must not exceed. Include any change of chair configuration into your time, if applicable).
• Performances will be timed. Time begins at the first note of the first piece. Competitors will be cut off should program exceed their respective time limit.
• There are no penalties for exceeding the time limit, but we encourage participants to remain within the boundaries of these time limits.
• Ten points will be deducted should the director perform with students. There is no penalty for directors conducting for their students.
• Only classical guitars are permitted to be used. Upper or lower ranged instruments such as a requinto and/or acoustic bass (contrabass) may also be used as long as the strings are nylon. No electric or steel-string instruments. No points will be deducted if music uses other instruments such as percussion (for example) – but only nylon-stringed instruments are encouraged.
Competition Registration Form, Masterclass sign-up and Vendor Application:
https://secure.touchnet.com/C24322_ustores/web/store_main.jsp?STOREID=464&SINGLESTORE=true
Registration must be received by March 25th to receive the $40.00 per participant charge. Late registrants will be charged $50.00 per participant. No registration forms will be accepted on or following March 30th as time is needed to organize the competition schedule and to print programs. Please submit forms as early as possible.
We encourage all participants to arrive in San Marcos on Friday, April 5th by 5:00 pm (at the earliest) so that all participants can enjoy our opening concert at 6:30 pm. Parking in the Pleasant Street garage across the street from the music building is free after 5:00 pm. Arrivals before 5:00 pm is asking for trouble.
Featured concert artists
Mark Anthony Cruz
(festival director)
As a composer and arranger, Mark Anthony Cruz is published by Mel Bay, Clearnote, Shawnee Press and Soundboard. He was the first prize-winner of the Austin Classical Guitar sponsored composition competition in 2006, '07, ’08, ’10 and ‘17. He has received several commissions from large institutions, DMA students and private artists. Mr. Cruz’s Triptych No. 1 for solo guitar has been performed internationally by guitar virtuoso, Adam Holzman. Such notable artists as Austin Guitar Quartet, Presti Trio, Texas Guitar Quartet, Kossler Duo and the Hanser/McClellan Duo have also performed his work in addition to numerous high schools and universities across the country and abroad. As a performer, Cruz placed 1st in the 2022 Indiana fingerstyle Contest and 1st in the 2013 Winfield International Fingerstyle Competition. He has been a feature artist at many important guitar festivals across Texas as a performer, teacher and lecturer. He has been a guest director in All-City guitar events in Nevada, Oklahoma and Texas. Five of Cruz's CDs have been featured on the nationally syndicated radio program, Classical Guitar Alive. Two of his all-original Cds received positive reviews in the scholarly periodical, Soundboard. Mr. Cruz has been professor of guitar at Texas State University – San Marcos since 1999 and resides in San Marcos, TX with his family.
Duo Solar
Marina De La Cruz-Medrano (left) began playing classical guitar in 2012 at the Cultural Institution of Villanueva Zacatecas. She has had the opportunity to participate in several competitions around Mexico and Texas, played with eminent classical guitarist performers like Pablo Garibay, and performed with the Youth Symphony Orchestra of the University of Zacatecas. In 2012, she placed second in the National Guitar Competition in Paracho, Michoacan, and in 2019 obtained Second Place in the Texas Guitar Competition at UT Dallas. She has also competed in the National Guitar Competition “Encuentro de Guitarras Salamanca” obtaining first place. She is currently a Senior at Texas State University pursuing a degree in Health Science with a minor in Music.
Sophie Reel has been playing classical guitar since 2020 and has had numerous opportunities to perform both as a soloist and in ensembles. In 2023, she placed 2nd in the high school classical guitar competition held at the UTSA Southwest Guitar Symposium. There, she had opportunities to learn from guest artists such as Andrea Gonzalez-Caballero and Alejandro Montiel. As a first-year student at Texas State University, Ms. Reel is pursuing a degree in Sound Recording Technology and studies classical guitar with Mark Cruz.
Texas Guitar Quartet
Formed in 2009, GRAMMY™-nominated Texas Guitar Quartet has been hailed as “Impeccable in every respect” by Classical Guitar Magazine. Throughout the United States, Central America, Spain, and China, audiences have embraced the quartet for their daring programs, dazzling virtuosity and joyful music making. Recent highlights include performances for the Encuentro Internacional de Guitarra 2016 (Nicaragua), Victoria Bach Festival, Guitar Foundation of America Convention, Festival Internacional del Noreste (Mexico), and Texas Music Festival. During the summer of 2015, the quartet presented a series of concerts in historic cathedrals along the Camino de Santiago, Spain.
The TxGQ premiered a landmark new work by lauded American composer Nico Muhly in collaboration with Grammy-winning chamber choir Conspirare, Grammy-winning Los Angeles Guitar Quartet, and the Dublin Guitar Quartet. The group continues to push the boundaries of the guitar quartet medium by premiering exciting new works by Joseph Williams II, Peter Lieuwen, Aureo Puerta Carreño, Benoit Albert, and John Truitt and creating daring arrangements of orchestral works by Mozart, Beethoven and Ravel.
Red, the quartet's first album, was released to critical acclaim and was praised by Guitar International as a “tremendous accomplishment for the classical guitar...the TxGQ perform with virtuosity, clarity, balance, and a refined character which will no doubt help to establish them as one of today’s leading guitar quartets.” Their follow-up album, ICON, features the complete 40th Symphony by Mozart and was released in 2017.
The TxGQ has been featured in concertos with the Brazos Valley Symphony Orchestra (Maestro Marcelo Bussiki), Camerata Bach and Nicaraguan Youth Symphony (Maestro César Bermúdez Rodriguez), Sam Houston State University Symphony Orchestra (Maestro Zachary Carretin), Abilene Philharmonic (Maestro David Itkin), and the Columbus Symphony Orchestra (Columbus, GA). Their commitment to performing outreach concerts led them to be part of the Texas Commission on the Arts Texas Touring Artist Roster from 2010 to 2018. The TxGQ is Isaac Bustos, Joseph Palmer, Jay Kacherski, and Alejandro Montiel.
Andy McKee
Andy McKee is one of the world’s finest acoustic guitarists. His attention to song structure and melodic content elevates him above the many in his genre. He pulls inspiration from acoustic greats such as Michael Hedges, Preston Reed, Billy McLaughlin and Prince. As one of his greatest influences, McKee singles out Hedges (who was an innovator of percussive acoustic playing) and expresses, “Michael was not only a revolutionary guitarist on the technical side, his ability to compose for solo guitar was also genius. Most importantly though, he was able to search inside of himself and consistently pull up very human and evocative themes that made him a true artist…”. It is evident that McKee embraces Hedges’ philosophy and embodies, through his own music, these very sentiments.
In 2012, McKee played alongside Prince on his “Welcome 2 Australia” tour. This event fueled his desire to create a solo guitar arrangement of Purple Rain which is included on McKee’s Symbol recording. Symbol is a collection of music that is a nod to his biggest influences, mentioned above.
His song, Drifting, became one of his first viral YouTube videos with 60 million views. He has been featured as a cover story in both Acoustic Guitar Magazine in the U.S. and Acoustic Magazine in the UK. He also curates his own annual guitar retreat called Musicarium. McKee’s tour dates have taken him through Europe, Asia, Australia and North America, including tours with legendary acts from Dream Theater to Tommy Emmanuel.