Guitar Solo, Ensemble, and Sight-Reading Festival
Saturday, April 26 - UMSL Music Department
11:00AM - 3:30PM
The Guitar Solo, Ensemble, and Sight-Reading Festival is an event organized by St. Louis Classical Guitar for middle and high school guitar ensembles and soloists. The purpose of the festival is to provide a goal for guitar programs in area schools to perform well for the event adjudicators. These adjudicators will provide constructive feedback to each ensemble and soloist. Soloists will be given an opportunity to perform a rehearsed solo piece for the adjudicators while ensembles will be given the opportunity to perform two pieces of varied styles. The sight reading component of this event will only be applied to ensembles. To enroll an ensemble and/or soloist for this event, please fill out the enrollment form below.
2025 Adjudicators
W Mark Akin -
Award-winning classical guitarist W. Mark Akin is a St. Louis based musician who has engaged audiences across the country with his dynamic on-stage presence and musicality.
Mark has won prizes in numerous competitions - In June 2022 Mark was a Featured Artist for the Missouri Arts Council.
After discovering the classical guitar in high school, he then decided to study the instrument full-time and subsequently received his bachelor's and master's degrees in guitar performance from Belmont University in Nashville, and the University of Arizona in Tucson. He has performed in master classes and taken lessons with some of the greatest guitarists in the world, namely Sergio and Odair Assad, Manuel Barrueco, David Russell, and Jason Vieaux, Olivier Chassain, Marcin Dylla, and Adam Holzman.
An active teacher, Mark has taught innumerable private lessons, is on faculty at Washington University in St. Louis. Mark is also the music director of the St. Louis Classical Guitar guitar orchestra.
Kirk Hanser -
Since the mid 80's, Kirk Hanser has performed throughout the U.S., Europe and Japan as a soloist and ensemble member. In concert and on recordings these days, he is mainly heard with John McClellan as the internationally acclaimed Hanser-McClellan Guitar Duo.
He completed graduate school in 1992 at Shenandoah Conservatory, just outside of Washington, D.C. After completing his masters degree, Kirk moved back to Wisconsin, teaching at various universities while playing concerts and casuals. In 1996, he moved to St. Louis, MO for a teaching opportunity, and has been in the area ever since.
As an instructor, Kirk has been recognized with several awards including Childbloom's Outstanding National Program of the Year (twice!) and National Teacher of the Year. Bella Corda, his student touring ensemble (ages 12-17) from the St. Louis Academy for Guitar was awarded first prize in a nationwide guitar ensemble contest in 2014.
Kirk serves on the music faculty for several colleges and universities, arranges music for events and publications, and acts as director for the guitar program at Grand Center Arts Academy.