Guitarraganza

2025 schedule is pending. All festival events will take place in Snider Recital Hall. Anything open to the public will also be live-streamed on the Stanislaus State Department of Music YouTube Channel (direct links included below).

Thursday, October 24, 2024

• 4:00pm Olga Amerkina-Vera: Composing for the Guitar
• 7:30pm Guest Artist concert: Jeremy Garcia, Flamenco Guitar

Friday, October 25, 2024

• 4:00pmJeremy Garcia: Flamenco Guitar Workshop
• 7:30pm Guest Artist concert: Kithara  (Olga Amerkina-Vera & Fernand Vera)

Saturday, October 26,2024

• 3:00pm Fernand Vera: Masterclass
• 7:30pm Gala Concert featuring: Jeremy Garcia, Kithara, Yuri Liberzon, and festival participants.

Evening Concerts

Non-participants must purchase tickets to attend the evening concerts. Advance ticket reservation is strongly recommended. Limited seats are available..

2025 TBA. The 2024 Guitarraganza Festival individual registration.

• $TBA

Complete Competition Entry Form before October 18 at 11:59 p.m.

Entry includes entry to all masterclasses and invitational concerts.

All participants are required to complete Release of Liability Web Form

Event Registration

2025 Guest Artist

Ibison Guitar Duo bio

The Ibison Guitar Duo, Chad Ibison and Janet Grohovac, are Grammy-nominated guitarists whose performances have been praised as “superb and sublime" (Austin American-Statesman) while presenting a "refined and elegant style" (This is Classical Guitar). The duo performs throughout the US and abroad with recent appearances at the Fundación Guitarra Viva tour in Chile (2025); the esteemed Brevard Music Festival in North Carolina; the Canada West tour of Banff, Edmonton, and a one week residency at Calgary’s GuitarFest West; Festival Internacional de Guitarra de Taxco, Mexico; Christ Church Cathedral series, Canada; Ticino Musica’s concerts in Lugano, Switzerland; and the Houston Classical Guitar Festival and Competition. Both hold Doctor of Musical Arts degrees from The University of Texas at Austin studying with Adam Holzman. Dr. Ibison has won many top prizes in competitions including the prestigious Guitar Foundation of America and the JoAnn Falletta Concerto Competition. Dr. Grohovac won 1st prize awards at the Southern Guitar Competition, and the Northwest Guitar Competition. Chad was the Teaching Assistant to Professor Adam Holzman at UT-Austin for 4 years and is the Professor of Guitar at Austin Community College. Janet is the Professor of Guitar at Concordia University Texas and Austin Community College. They also manage their own very successful Austin-based guitar studio where the duo teaches close to seventy students a week. Janet and Chad perform on Martin Blackwell guitars handcrafted in the Sunshine Coast of BC, Canada. 

Chad Ibison bio:

American guitarist Dr. Chad Ibison has captivated audiences across North America and abroad through his imaginative musical interpretations and charismatic stage presence. Hailed through critical acclaim, Chad has been described as “very versatile in terms of contrast and range of expression” (Classical Guitar Canada) with “masterful phrasing combined with technical precision” (ClassicalGuitar.org). Composer Gregory Sullivan Isaacs, in the Fort Worth Star Telegram, describes Ibison’s impact as a performer; “Chad gave an incendiary performance. His approach was, at the same time, aggressive and intimate. He melded with the instrument, and the result was brash, expressive and technically secure.” Along with his critical acclaim, Ibison has accumulated ten first place awards among his eighteen top prize wins at international guitar competitions including The Guitar Foundation of America, JoAnn Falletta Concerto Competition and Boston’s New England Conservatory Guitarfest. He participates regularly at guitar festivals as a performer, teacher and judge.

Chad is a member of the Ibison Guitar Duo, where he and Dr. Janet Grohovac performs throughout the US and abroad. Recent concerts include their 2025 tour in Chile, a tour throughout western Canada including a one week residency at Calgary’s GuitarFest West, a residency at the esteemed Brevard Music Festival in North Carolina, along with a Southeast tour in Nashville, TN, Columbus, GA and Troy, AL. They have also performed at the Music by the Sea festival in Victoria, BC, Ticino Musica’s concerts in Lugano, Switzerland, concerts in Taxco, Mexico, Houston’s Classical Guitar Festival and Competition, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee concert series, Austin Classical Guitar’s series, and Austin’s radio stations KMFA and KVRX.

Chad is also a member of the Austin Guitar Quartet. In 2019, the quartet performed and recorded Nico Muhly’s “How Little You Are” with the Texas Guitar Quartet, and the Grammy Award Winning groups, Los Angeles Guitar Quartet and Conspirare under the direction of Craig Hella Johnson. The 2020 album, “The Singing Guitar” on the Delos label, reached #15 on the Billboard traditional classical charts in its first week and was reviewed favorably by BBC 3 Radio. In 2022, the album was nominated for a Grammy.

Chad resides in Austin and is currently a Professor of Guitar and directs the ensemble at Austin Community College and maintains a private studio in Hyde Park.