The musical abilities of the fine and performing arts faculty will be displayed at the faculty recital featuring David Bryan, lecturer of guitar and Southeastern alumnus.

The recital will be held in Pottle Auditorium on Monday, April 16 at 7:30 p.m. It will be the final event of the 13th annual Southeastern Guitar Festival and, like previous events, will be free and open to the public. The events of the guitar festival are sponsored by SGA, the Arts and Lectures Committee and the Southeastern Guitar Club.

“Guitar Fest was started to promote guitar and to focus on classical guitar. It brings to the community, the campus and the students the relatively small cut of music that exists for classical guitar,” said Patrick Kerber, instructor of guitar and coordinator of guitar activities. “It’s not as big as the piano, not as big as the opera or the orchestra, but it is definitely here and it’s not going away. It’s still around. People are still doing it, and if we don’t have things like this, than people won’t know.”

The Southeastern Guitar Festival saw its beginnings in 1999 as a way to promote classical guitar. This year’s festival hosted seven events making it the largest Southeastern Guitar Festival ever held. 

The pieces selected for the faculty recital came from the classical music genre, as was the case for all the guitar festival events, with the exception of the All Styles Night. 

“The mission of the musical school is to study and promote classical music,” said Kerber. “When it comes to guitar, guitar being an instrument that is so prevalent in our society in pop music which can be found everywhere, the university promotes the beginnings of the guitar.”

While the faculty recital is primarily centered on solo performances by Bryan, three accompanists will perform as guest artists.

 Customarily an out of town guest artist would be called in to perform in the recital. However, this year, the guest artists were chosen locally.

Bryan selected Jessica Bryan, a soprano as well as Bryan’s wife, Zackary Garner, a saxophonist and music education major and Kerber, Bryan’s former instructor, to accompany him throughout the recital.

Throughout each performance, with the exception of All Styles Night, every musician used a classical guitar. Kerber emphatically explained the difference between the classical guitar and the rest of the guitars.

“People say electric guitar, they say acoustic guitar, they say jazz guitar, they say string guitar, they say classical guitar, but what we call the classical guitar really should simply be called the guitar because it was the first instrument,” said Kerber. “All the variations came later.”

As the coordinator of the Southeastern Guitar Festival, Kerber related his own opinions of the festival.

“It’s a fantastic thing. It keeps going and it both brings notoriety to the university, but also the educational component,” said Kerber. “You can’t put a price tag on it.”

For further information contact Kerber at 985-549-2886 or [email protected].