MARCIN DYLLA TO INAUGURATE
FACULTY ARTIST-IN-RESIDENCE PROGRAM IN GUITAR
AT THE SAN FRANCISCO CONSERVATORY OF MUSIC
The San Francisco Conservatory of Music will welcome classical guitarist Marcin Dylla to its guitar department with a guest faculty appointment during the fall semester of 2016. Dylla, whom The Washington Post describes as “among the most gifted guitarists on the planet,” inaugurates a new faculty artist-in-residence program at SFCM that offers guitar students the extraordinary opportunity to learn from a different artist of international stature for a full semester each fall.
Marcin Dylla is acclaimed for balancing technical mastery with subtle artistry in deeply expressive performances of classic and contemporary works. His career took flight with a string of nineteen first prize victories at international competitions, including a Gold Medal at the 2007 Guitar Foundation of America International Competition. In solo recitals and with major orchestras, Dylla has appeared at venues throughout North America, Europe and Asia, and at virtually every major European and North American guitar festival. He is a professor at the Academy of Music in Kraków and the Academy of Music in Katowice in his native Poland.
“SFCM is pleased to launch this exciting new program in guitar by hosting Marcin Dylla, one of the most compelling and imaginative guitarists of his generation,” says President David H. Stull. “Our students will benefit immeasurably from intensive study with Dylla and visiting artists of his caliber each fall, even as they continue to receive long-term mentorship from our faculty of award-winning international performers.”
During his 14-week tenure at SFCM, Dylla will teach lessons, performance classes and a seminar that draws on his in-depth knowledge of repertoire and technique. In addition to sharing his expertise with the department as a whole, Dylla will work individually with students of faculty member Sérgio Assad. Beginning in the 2016-17 academic year, Assad will maintain his spring semester teaching schedule at SFCM while continuing to tour internationally with his brother Odair as the Latin Grammy Award-winning Assad Brothers guitar duo.
“We are thrilled to welcome the outstanding Polish guitarist Marcin Dylla to the San Francisco Conservatory of Music for the fall 2016 semester,” says Conservatory Guitar Department Chair David Tanenbaum. “Marcin is for me at the top of his generation of guitarists; he is musician first and guitarist second. His recital programs always contain substantial works, and he is unafraid of the new and challenging. SFCM and Marcin Dylla will be a great match.”
The first conservatory in the United States to offer a Master of Music degree in classical guitar, the San Francisco Conservatory of Music continues to find innovative ways to teach guitarists the broadest range of skills necessary to become expressive artists and successful professionals. The guitar department features a faculty of five award-winning performers who have also earned distinction as composers, arrangers, authors, recording artists and experts in early and new music. The Conservatory Guitar Ensemble has premiered works by composers including Steve Mackey, Terry Riley and faculty member Sérgio Assad. Guitar students perform frequently as soloists, in cross-departmental collaborations with Conservatory composers and singers, and in concert with professional ensembles such as San Francisco Contemporary Music Players. They gain insights into the history and evolution of the guitar through the Harris Guitar Collection of rare and historic instruments, a unique resource housed at SFCM available to students for research, performance and recording. World-famous guitarists performing in San Francisco regularly hold master classes at SFCM courtesy of the Omni Foundation for the Performing Arts. Recent and upcoming guest artists include Manuel Barrueco, Alvaro Pierri, David Russell, Kazuhito Yamashita and the Beijing Guitar Duo. From January 14-17, 2016, SFCM will host the Third International Maurizio Biasini Guitar Competition and Festival featuring the premiere of a guitar concerto by Clarice Assad and performances by former Biasini winner Emanuele Buono, an international panel of jurists and Conservatory guitar students.
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About The San Francisco Conservatory of Music
Founded in 1917, the San Francisco Conservatory of Music is the oldest conservatory in the American West and has earned an international reputation for producing musicians of the highest caliber. Notable alumni include violinists Yehudi Menuhin and Isaac Stern, conductor and pianist Jeffrey Kahane, soprano Elza van den Heever, Blue Bottle Coffee founder James Freeman and Ronald Losby, President, Steinway & Sons-Americas, among others. Its faculty includes nearly 30 members of the San Francisco Symphony as well as Grammy and Latin Grammy Award-winning artists in the fields of orchestral and chamber performance and classical guitar. The Conservatory offers its approximately 400 collegiate students fully accredited bachelor’s and master’s degree programs in composition and instrumental and vocal performance. SFCM was the first institution of its kind to offer world-class graduate degree programs in chamber music and classical guitar. Its Pre-College Division provides exceptionally high standards of musical excellence and personal attention to more than 200 younger students. SFCM faculty and students give nearly 500 public performances each year, most of which are offered to the public at no charge. Its community outreach programs serve over 1,600 school children and over 6,000 members of the wider community who are otherwise unable to hear live performances. The Conservatory’s Civic Center facility is an architectural and acoustical masterwork, and the Caroline H. Hume Concert Hall was lauded by
The New York Times as the “most enticing classical-music setting” in the San Francisco Bay Area. For more information, visit
www.sfcm.edu.
