Summary

• Our next Guitar Society Meeting is on May 5 (first Monday of the month) at Odd Fellows Hall and will begin at 7:15 pm; free and open to the public.
• Cameron O’Connor is the featured artist for the evening concert.
• Isaac Engel will be running the Community Ensemble Session; scores and performance prep notes for the pieces are provided. Recordings provided as available! See the ensemble section below for score access and details below…
• The Open Stage is an opportunity for anyone to play classical guitar music – beginners, intermediate, and advanced! This month will feature an extended open stage time for our players already signed up from last month. Get your name on that sign-up sheet early!
• The After School Guitar Program is going to take place on Monday May 5 at 6:00 pm run by Isaac Engel, and on Monday May 19 at 7:00 pm run by Jacob Ripley.

Corvallis Guitar Society Monthly Meeting

Our next monthly meeting is on Monday, May 5th, 7:15pm – 9:15pm
Venue: Odd Fellows Hall, 223 SW 2nd St, Corvallis
Free & Open to the Public

The Agenda
7:15 – 7:20 pm Welcome
7:20 – 7:35 pm Open Guitar Ensemble: everyone is welcome to play in the group! Continue past the featured artist information for the music.
7:35 – 8:20 pm Open Stage: beginners, intermediate players, and advanced guitarists are all welcome to come and share their music with us!
8:20 – 8:30 pm Break and Refreshments
8:30 – 9:15 pm Cameron O’Connor is our guest artist for the evening’s free guitar concert.

Featured Artist: Cameron O’Connor

http://www.cameronoconnor.com/

Artist Bio:

Corvallis’s own Cameron O’Connor is the featured artist for our May meeting!

Acclaimed as “stunning and emotive” (Eugene Register-Guard)  and “accomplished and soulful” (Portland Magazine) Cameron O’Connor enjoys a diverse career in solo, chamber, and contemporary music. 

A few career highlights include recitals throughout Japan; performing as a guest artist at the Loyola Marymount, Corvallis, Siempre la Guitarra, and Northwest Guitar Festivals; chamber music and opera appearances with Eugene Opera and musicians of the Oregon Symphony in their Classical Up Close concert series; as a chamber music soloist at the New World Symphony in Miami (for which the South Florida Classical Review noted that he was “especially effective in the quick and diabolical figures”); appearing as a guest artist and performing duos with Sharon Isbin at the Aspen Music Festival and School; performing with Michael Tilson Thomas and the New World Symphony; and appearing under the baton of Chinese composer Tan Dun in his Eastern-tinged Concerto for Six, for which the New York Times noted that “O’Connor fluttered on his guitar strings in a manner reminiscent of a pipa player’s technique.” He is furthermore a prizewinner in many international competitions, including the Frances Walton and Tokyo International Guitar Competition. 

His playing has been featured in films, including James Franco’s Don Quixote and Scott Tennant’s instructional classic Pumping Nylon, and his performances have been featured on Seattle’s Classical 98.1 KingFM,  All Classical Portland, American Public Media’s Performance Today, and KPFK’s Global Village. His recording of Michael Lee’s Unmasked (written for O’Connor) was chosen for Ablaze Record’s Millenial Masters, distributed by Naxos. As a composer, O’Connor won the 2019 Keene State College Call for Scores, the “Outstanding Winner” 2nd prize at the Changsha International Guitar Festival in China, and is a finalist in the 2nd Portugal International Guitar Composition Competition. 

O’Connor also performs regularly for musical theatre productions on electric guitar, banjo, and mandolin, as well as in early music settings on the vihuela and lute.​

Cameron’s compositions and arrangements can be found through LACG Editions (lacg.net); and his writings published in the pages of the Guitar Foundation of America’s quarterly, Soundboard. 

Cameron is the Artistic Director of our own Corvallis Guitar Society, and we’re thrilled to have him playing for us! 

Open Guitar Ensemble

Isaac Engel is running the Open Guitar Ensemble in which anyone is welcome to participate. When you look at the pieces, decide which part you wish to play, and maybe let Isaac know ahead of time – his email is [email protected] and bring the music with you to the Guitar Society meeting.

This is a shortened ensemble session to allow for a longer Open Stage time. We’re also excited to feature a piece composed for guitar duo by a society member!

Pieces for the May Meeting

Galya’s Dance – Lou Warde
MP3 recording and score available on Lou’s website here
Download the PDF score here
Watch the YouTube performance here
Notes: Let’s do this one again! It’s a lovely bit of music, and it’s worth another evening’s practice. This is an original composition by Lou Warde, and the practice recordings are incredibly helpful. This piece is difficult! Part 3 is the friendliest part with almost all the notes at a moderate pace in the first position. To locate the MP3 recording on his website you’ll need to locate the piece title and click on it to expand the tile showing the recording, video, and files.

Lullaby – Karen Meyers
Score and parts: Lullaby
Recording: none
Notes: This is a piece composed by a Corvallis Guitar Society member and long-time regular at society meetings, Karen Myer. This piece is written as a duo, but Part 1 players will be splitting into a two-part divisi in measures 13-16. Players on Part 1a will be playing only notes stemmed upwards, and players on Part 1b will play the notes stemmed downwards.

Open Stage

Special note: we were unable to provide an open stage time last meeting, so the signups from the April meeting will be featured first.

Everyone is invited to perform guitar music on the Open Stage at the Corvallis Guitar Society, whether beginner, intermediate, and advanced. Bring your guitar, put your name down on the sign-up sheet at the beginning of the evening, and we’ll give you a warm welcome as you share some music with us!

Guitar Teaching Lessons

The Guitar Lessons Program is a free lesson offered to community members twice monthly by Corvallis Guitar Society Directors Isaac Engel, and Jacob Ripley.

The After School Guitar Program is free and open to the public. We invite especially middle and high school students to explore the possibilities that playing guitar can open up. Our goal is to raise the awareness and understanding of the guitar as a wonderful instrument by featuring group lessons, private lessons and ensemble music.

These month’s scores are a friendly interpretation of Malaguena https://guitardownunder.com/_scores/malaguena.php and an intermediate arrangement of Aura Lee https://guitardownunder.com/_scores/auralee.php both done by the fantastic fingerstyle guitarist Bill Tyers.

If you have any question contact Jacob at [email protected]  or phone 541-357-2513, or contact Isaac Engel [email protected] or phone 971-718-4535 and you can view his website: https://isaacengelmusic.com/

Times are as follows:
The First Monday on May 5 at Odd Fellows Hall – Isaac Engel
6:00pm to 7:00pm is the After School Guitar Program (group lesson and ensemble)
The Third Monday on May 19 at Odd Fellows Hall – Jacob Ripley
7:00 – 8:30pm is the After School Guitar Program group lesson & the Community Beginning group lesson.

The Location for the Event

Entrance to the above events is free and open to the public (donations gratefully received).

Location: Odd Fellows Hall, 223 SW 2nd St, Corvallis, OR 97333. The entrance door is right next to the New Morning Bakery.

Thanks so much and all best wishes,

Best Regards
Isaac Engel, Director of the Corvallis Guitar Society