This unique Texas competition, designed to showcase outstanding classical guitar students, will award $6,000 in cash prizes to the winners. Past contestants have come from countries such as Uruguay, Brazil, Finland, Nicaragua, France and Australia. Over the three-day event, students can compete and attend a master class,a concert by Javier Garcia Moreno, the finals and a performance by this year's winners.

Master Class by Isaac Bustos
Thursday, March 22
7:30 p.m., Jonsson Performance Hall

Due to unforseen circumstances Javier Garcia Moreno will not be performing.

Laureate Concert - Issac Bustos
Friday, March 23, 8:00 p.m., $20
The 2005 Texas Guitar Competition First Place winner returns for the first Laureate Concert. Bustos, originally from Nicaragua, has performed extensively throughout the United States. The Portland Oregonian calls his performance “soulful and virtually flawless.” His professor at The University of Texas at Austin, Adam Holzman, claims Bustos “is the finest performance student in the program and ranks in the top two or three performers that I have been associated with in my 20 years of teaching at the college level. He has a dazzling technique, the best sound (tone and volume) I have ever taught, a willingness to continue to learn and a natural and mature musicianship well beyond his years.” More about Bustos
           
Finals of 2007 Competition
Saturday, March 24, 3:00 p.m., $20
Take this opportunity to hear the six finalists compete. Enjoy a reception, after which the 2007 competition winners will be announced and perform a brief concert.  

The 2007 Winners Are:

1st place - Aleksandr Tsiboulski is a Fullbright Scholar from the University of Adelaide currently studying with Adam Holzman at the University of Texas. Holzman calls him “one of the finest talents I have had the privilege of working with” and “an extremely bright young man filled with great promise as a musician.” Tsiboulski has performed in Australia, Canada, Mexico, England, and New Zealand. He won 1st prize in the Australian Guitar Competition in 2000, the Sydney Guitar Competition in 2001, and the Gisborne Instrumental Music Competition in 2003.

2nd place - Silviu Ciulei, a junior at Middle Tennessee State University, won second prize at the Appalachian Guitar Competition in Boone, North Carolina approximately one month before the competition at UT Dallas.  He has performed with The Black Sea Philharmonic, a Romanian orchestra.   Ciulei has appeared on Romania’s national television and performed throughout Europe and the United States.  In 2006, he earned first prize in the Beethoven Club Guitar Competition in Memphis.  Dr. William Yelverton, Ciulei’s instructor, calls him “a remarkable genius, a true prodigy…certainly the best for his age”

3rd place - Jonathan Dotson has been featured on Jacksonville's public radio and television.  Now a student at the University of Texas, he has studied under Mary Akerman, Adam Holzman, Bruce Holzman and Andrew Zohn,  Adam Holzman  describes Dotson as a “bright and promising guitarist with…a fine technique and a mature musical sensitivity.”  In 2002, he was invited to Miami to perform at the Guitar Foundation of America convention.  Dotson won 1st prize in the 2005 Appalachian International Solo Guitar Competition. 

4th place (Honorable mention)- Adam Kossler

Sponsored in part by
The Renaissance Capital Group

Sponsored in part by
SAVAREZ STRINGS of France

Fee support by
the Carl J. Thomsen Fund for Student Enrichment