Last modified: Thursday, April 8, 2010
Indiana University Jacobs School Guitar Festival winners announced
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 8, 2010
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- With a field of 26 competitors from all over the world and two intensive days of concerts and competition rounds, the first Indiana Guitar Festival and Competition ended March 28 with a decision to award two first prizes and two second prizes. The festival took place in Bloomington, Ind., at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music.
The 2010 Indiana University Guitar Festival and Competition winners join the jury following the final concert
"The level of the guitarists matched those of any major international competition," said Jacobs Professor Ernesto Bitetti, artistic director of the competition, who has sat on similar juries for more than 30 years. "Our judges and audiences were thrilled by what they saw and final decisions about the winners were extremely tough to make."
In the end, the two first-place winners, awarded $1,000 each, were Eduardo Minozzi Costa from Brazil and Edel Muñoz from Cuba. The second prize-winners, receiving $750 each, were Jordan Dodson and Cameron O'Connor, both from the United States.
Jury members for the competition were Carmen Helena Téllez, Professor in Choral Conducting and Director of the Jacobs School of Music Latin American Music Center; Elzbieta Szmyt, Associate Professor of Harp; Elisabeth Wright, Elisabeth Wright, Professor of Early Music (harpsichord); Luke Gillespie, Associate Professor of Jazz (piano); Petar Jankovic, Adjunct Lecturer in Guitar; and Atanas Tzvetkov, Director of the Guitar Department's Pre-College program. Bitetti chaired the jury.
In addition to the competition rounds, the Jacobs School of Music Guitar Department presented four showcase recitals by doctoral students Erol Ozsever and Guido Sanchez, artist diploma student Nemanja, and guest William Yelverton, director of Guitar Studies at Middle Tennessee State University.
The First-Prize Winners
Eduardo Minozzi Costa studied at the University of São Paulo, Brazil, before studying with full scholarship for his Master's and Doctoral Degrees at the University of Arizona. While in the United States, Costa has won four prestigious guitar competitions, the most recent being the Sholin Memorial Guitar Competition in Tucson, Arizona, in April, 2009. He has been invited to perform as a guest artist in major cities such as Portland, Houston, Boston, Austin and St. Joseph, Missouri. He has been a teaching assistant to Professor Thomas Patterson in the School of Music at the University of Arizona since 2006.
Edel Muñoz began his guitar studies at the age of seven at the "Vocational School of Art" in his native town of Matanzas, Cuba, and was recognized as one of the world's young classical guitar virtuosos. He graduated from the "National School of Music" in Havana in 1994. After leaving Cuba, he continued his studies with Eduardo Isaac in Argentina, Luis Orlandini at the University of Santiago de Chile, and Alex Garrobe in Barcelona Spain. As a concert artist, Edel has performed throughout Cuba, Central America, South America and Europe as solo recitalist, chamber musician and soloist with orchestra. He is recognized as one of the world's classical guitar upcoming virtuosos. He has won first prize in a number of international competitions in Cuba, Argentina, Uruguay and Spain.
For more information about the Jacobs School of Music, see https://www.music.indiana.edu/.
