International Guitar Festival - Jay Kacherski & Rafael Padron
Free and Open to the Public
"Virtuosismo" and "technical dominance" are the words used by the press to describe American guitarist, Jay Kacherski. A native of New York, Kacherski has performed around the world as a soloist, in duo with piano, and as a member of the Grammy-nominated Texas Guitar Quartet. He has performed at distinguished music festivals and venues such as the Festival International de Guitarra de Taxco, Mexico, the Florida Guitar Foundation, the Brevard Music Center, Round Top, the New Orleans International Guitar Festival, the Austin Classical Guitar Society, the GuitUNAM guitar festival in Mexico City, Casa Sors in Barcelona, Spain, and the International Guitar Art Festival in Shenzhen, China. He has also collaborated with Grammy-winners and nominees such as the chamber choir Conspirare, Chilean flutist Viviana Guzman, the Los Angeles Guitar Quartet and renowned American composer Libby Larsen.
Jay Kacherski spent two years living in Mexico as a Fulbright Scholar and member of the guitar faculty at the Escuela Nacional de Música, the music conservatory for the National University of Mexico (UNAM) researching, performing, and promoting contemporary classical guitar music of Mexico. His guide and teacher for this work was the world-renowned Mexican guitarist Dr. Juan Carlos Laguna. Kacherski has since premiered and recorded many new works from Mexico and has created a complete catalog of Mexican guitar works with links to videos, audio, scores, and more that can be found at www.kacherskiguitar.com.
His debut solo album Synthesis: 20th & 21st Century Guitar Music from Mexico was the culmination of his Fulbright work. The recording, which is on the Frameworks Records label, has been hailed as a “…brilliant album” and “one of the finest guitar solo recordings of recent years” by Soundboard magazine. His latest recording Landscapes with Brazilian pianist Lina Morita, also on the Frameworks Records label, is an album of new works for piano and guitar duo by award winning composers such as Jefferson Todd Frazier, Olga Amelkina-Vera, Luciana Bigazzi and Maurizio Colonna among others. Soundboard magazine called it “an impressive album both in music and performances.” The duo has also commissioned a new work by the celebrated Brazilian American composer Clarice Asaad, as well as new works from American composer Jefferson Todd Frazier and Spanish composer José Galeote.
Jay Kacherski is currently Assistant Professor of Music at Del Mar College in Corpus Christi, Texas and was formerly on the guitar faculty at Loyola University of New Orleans, the University of New Orleans, and McNeese State University, as well as NOCCA, the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts. He has presented at music conventions and festivals throughout the U.S. and abroad and is often invited to adjudicate at national and international competitions. As a teacher, his students have been finalists and winners of international solo and chamber music competitions and recipients of scholarships for continued study.
Kacherski is the Artistic Director of the Gulf Coast Guitar Association and the Houston Classical Guitar Festival and Competition and the former director of the Loyola Guitar Festival in New Orleans and the Francis G. Bulber Youth Orchestra Guitar Program. His academic studies include a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the University of Texas at Austin, a Master of Music degree in Guitar Performance and Literature from the Eastman School of Music, and undergraduate degrees from Florida Southern College where he graduated with honors.
Rafael Padron
Cuban born guitarist, Rafael Padrón, is director of the Guitar Program at the University of Miami Frost School of Music where he is also a lecturer in the Department of Instrumental Performance. Padrón has won top prizes in many national and international competitions and has been featured in many international guitar festivals throughout the world. He has also performed both solo and with orchestras in various cities in Cuba, Chile, Venezuela, Costa Rica, Japan, Spain and in the United States of America. He is the artistic director of the Florida Guitar Foundation.
Padrón began studying the guitar at the age of eleven. In 1986, he was awarded a scholarship to study at the Advanced Institute of Art in Havana where he received the “High Achieving Student” award. He then graduated from the Peabody Conservatory at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, MD, where he completed his Graduate Performance diploma on a full scholarship, under the tutelage of world-renowned guitarist Manuel Barrueco. Padrón attained his Master’s Degree diploma at the University of Miami in December 2005. He has recorded four CDs “Fandango” with Aurora Guitar Quartet, and solo “Noviembre”, “Alhambra” and “Barrios”.
Rafael Padrón has been part of the faculty in music schools and universities such as the University of Costa Rica and National University of Heredia (Costa Rica), and the Calcaño Foundation (Venezuela), Gulf Coast University (Fort Myers, Florida) and Florida International University (Miami, Florida).
