There have been many emails from the girls asking for more features on female classical guitarist. Well, here it is! The woman guitarist is not uncommon in this male dominated art.
Female Guitarist – Woman of the Guitar – List:
- Ana Vidovic
- Sharon Isbin
- Martha Masters
- Xuefei Yang
- Pia Gazarek- Offermann
Did I forget your favorite guitarist? Leave a comment!
Looking for an inspiring gift for yourself or daughter:
Female Classical Guitarists
Ana Vidovic
Ana Vidović (born 8 November 1980 in Karlovac, Croatia) is one of the youngest virtuoso guitarists in the world. She started playing guitar at the age of five, inspired by her brother Viktor. By the age of 11 she was performing internationally, and at 13 became the youngest student to attend the prestigious National Musical Academy in Zagreb where she studied with Professor Istvan Romer. Vidović’s reputation in Europe led to an invitation to study at the Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore, U.S., with Manuel Barrueco, from where she graduated in May 2003. In an interview, she has stated that she plays lots of scales and uses a metronome.
Xuefei Yang
(simplified Chinese: 杨雪霏; traditional Chinese: 楊雪霏; pinyin: Yáng Xuěfēi; born March 15, 1977 in Beijing) is an award-winning Chinese classical guitarist.
The pioneering spirit of internationally acclaimed guitarist and EMI recording artist, Xuefei Yang, has been evident since childhood. The Beijing-born, London-based musician is the first :
- Guitarist to enter a music school in China
- Guitarist to graduate with a BA degree in guitar, in China
- Guitarist to receive an international scholarship from the Associated Board of The Royal Schools of Music, for her postgraduate study at Royal Academy of Music
- Chinese person to receive such a scholarship
- Person from mainland China to launch an international career as a guitarist
- Chinese guitarist to sign with a major record label (EMI).
Martha Masters
Martha Masters is a renowned American classical guitarist. She won the 2000 Guitar Foundation of America international solo competition. Masters is the Executive Vice-president of the GFA.
According to Naxos “she received both the Bachelor and Master of Music degrees from the Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore, where she studied with Manuel Barrueco, and completed the Doctor of Musical Arts degree at the University of Southern California as a student of Scott Tennant.”
Martha is currently a professor and guitar instructor at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, California, where she gives both private instruction and directs the LMU Guitar Ensemble.
Martha Masters ~ Scarlatti Sonata K.277 L.183 P.275
Sharon Isbin
Sharon Isbin (born August 7, 1956 in St. Louis Park, Minnesota) is a widely-recorded American classical guitarist, recording artist, concertizer, and the founder of the Guitar Department at the Juilliard School.
She is the author of the Classical Guitar Answer Book, and is Director of guitar departments at the Aspen Music Festival[1] and The Juilliard School. Isbin has been hailed as “the pre-eminent guitarist of our time” (Boston Magazine.) She is also the winner of Guitar Player magazine’s “Best Classical Guitarist” award, First Prize winner of the Toronto Guitar ’75 competition, a winner of the Madrid Queen Sofia, and the first guitarist ever to win the Munich Competition.
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PIA GAZAREK OFFERMANN
PIA GAZAREK OFFERMANN
Classical Guitar Magazine London 2009: “ … she is truly outstanding. Listening to this exquisite playing, you understand who Pia Gazarek- Offermann is. She has a great sensibility in her phrasing and she has her own special sound, extremely pure. This helps her to convey to the listener a world of inner poetry … “
The guitarist Pia Gazarek-Offermann began playing the violin at the age of four. Her music education was at the Spezialschule für Musik in Wernigerode. She then studied classical guitar with Prof. Thomas Offermann and Jens Wagner at several Musikhochschulen in Berlin, Weimar and Bremen.
In addition to her guitar studies she was a member of the internationally renowned Youth Radio Choir of Wernigerode and the international prize-winning Vocal Consort Weimar. Her musical and artistic formation continued to include Masterclasses with Roberto Aussel, David Russell and Hopkinson Smith and many others.
In 1994 she was the prize-winner at the International Classical Guitar Competition in Cracow, Poland.
Pia Gazarek-Offermann has given concerts in several European countries as well as in Asia and North America. She currently teaches in Berlin and is active as a jurist and teacher at several international competitions and festivals.
From the Press:
„ … Exceedingly demanding, the music shone scrupulously on key and was full of such splendid finesse that the audience didn’t know whether it was coming or going…
…With hard glissandi and rapid runs Pia Gazarek-Offermann seemed to want to beat the truth out of her guitar… she conjured a cornucopia of atmospheric pictures – intoxicating…
(Bonner Rundschau)
