Boston Guitar Festival Opening Concert

Guitarists Zaira Meneses (Mexico), Adam Levin (USA), Alexander Romanov (USA), Thatcher Harrison (USA) & Lautaro Mantilla (Colombia) will perform in the unique setting of the Foundry.  The Foundry is an exciting new venue for arts organizations such as Eliot Fisk Guitar Academy to present events such as this.

A cocktail hour will precede the opening night of the six day festival with a cash bar and complimentary hors d’oeuvres for ticket holders.

ZAIRA MENESES:

“An accomplished Mexican-born guitarist . . . Ms. Meneses has a fluid, colorful style” –The New York Times

Zaira Meneses is among the most exciting performers of the classical guitar. She is also a dancer, singer and Son Jarocho performance artist!

Her musicality, charisma and impeccable technique have delighted audiences on four continents. She has been acclaimed by the international press as a major performing artist of the classical guitar.

The New York Times called her “an arresting performer full of colorful touches.”

ADAM LEVIN

“Visceral and imaginative performances” –The Washington Post

Prize winning, Billboard top-charting classical guitarist and recording artist Adam Levin has performed on 4 continents around the globe. Levin has also performed extensively in the U.S. at renowned venues such as Chicago’s Pick Staiger, Nichols and Mayne Stage concert halls as well as at the prestigious Art Institute of Chicago while The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, The Museum of Fine Arts and Jordan Hall have hosted him in Boston. He also has performed at Spivey Hall in Atlanta, at Le Poisson Rouge in NYC and at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC. Elsewhere, Levin has performed in some of the finest venues in Spain, Italy, Germany, Switzerland, Israel, China, Brazil and Columbia. Adam has been featured nationally several times on NPR’s Performance Today, on Classical Guitar Alive and in studio performances on top radio stations including WFMT in Chicago, WCRB in Boston and on RIPR in Rhode Island.

LAUTARO MANTILLA

“Lautaro Mantilla did away with words altogether, creating a kind of vocal installation on the themes of sisterhood and silence. Eerie, electrifying and curiously moving, it fitted well into an evening that soldered together the archaic and the experimental.”
–The New York Times (Written about his compositions)

Guitarist, composer and improviser Lautaro Mantilla is from Bogotá, Colombia. In his performances, he typically combines guitar, extended vocalization techniques and home-built electronics to create music that is both viscerally affecting and conceptually rigorous. Based in Boston, Lautaro is a faculty member of the Contemporary Improvisation Dept. at NEC. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Classical guitar from Pontificia Universidad Javeriana in Bogotá (Colombia), a Master’s in guitar and improvisation and a Doctorate in composition, both from NEC.

THATCHER HARRISON

Thatcher Harrison has won twenty prizes in regional, national and international competitions, most notably The 1st Prize at the 2021 Twents Gitaarfestival International Fingerstyle Guitar Competition, 1st Prize at the 2021 Pleven Guitar Festival Fingerstyle Guitar Competition, 1st Prize at the 2020 Boston Guitarfest Competition and 1st Prize at the 2020 Atlanta Festival Guitar Competition. He was also a winner in the 2019 National YoungArts Foundation Competition.

Thatcher Harrison chooses to perform unconventional, daring programs, oftentimes consisting primarily of his own compositions.

ALEXANDER ROMANOV

Guitarist Alexander Romanov is also an audio engineer from the Washington D.C. area. A graduate of the New England Conservatory of Music with a Bachelor of Music degree in Guitar Performance, he studied with renowned musicians Eliot Fisk and Jerome Mouffe.

In 2021, Alexander received accreditation from Berklee College of Music in audio engineering as well. While he is pursuing his Master of Music degree at the New England Conservatory of Music, Alexander is also an active teacher. He maintains a private studio in Boston