As the saying goes, life is a journey. Walk through life with a guitar in hand, and you might never walk alone.
Guitars are everywhere – on the radio, in coffee shops, subways and concert halls. And for more than three decades, the Columbus Guitar Society has brought classical guitarists together in a dedicated guitar home for central Ohio.
“We are the organization that supports performance and concerts for the classical guitar in central Ohio. We’re really the only organization that does that,” said Sean Ferguson, who has served as president of the Columbus Guitar society for the last 20 years.
The guitar is ubiquitous in popular music, but the acoustic guitar occupies a sort of limbo in classical music. The Columbus Guitar Society, Ferguson says, gives local classical guitarists a variety of ongoing opportunities to exchange ideas and gain inspiration – an annual series of concerts by world-class professional guitarists, opportunities to perform with the society’s Members’ Ensemble and informal monthly guitar-interest meetups.
These opportunities, Ferguson says, don’t exist for the instrument anywhere else in central Ohio.
“One of the things that’s so vital about having a guitar society in a city is that the instrument is often kind of left to the side of other classical music activities and organizations because the guitar is not a central part of organizations like symphonies or mainstream chamber music groups,” said Ferguson. “(The Columbus Guitar Society) is really a sort of focal point for anybody who is interested in classical guitar in the area.”
Today, the Columbus Guitar Society continues to sustain itself as an all-volunteer organization on a shoestring budget into a fourth decade and remains the hub of professional and amateur classical guitar activity in central Ohio.
The Making of the Columbus Guitar Society
A number of guitar interest groups of relatively short duration were launched in Columbus between 1961 and the founding of the Columbus Guitar Society in 1993. Between 1961 and 1963, the earliest of those groups, the Classical Guitar Society of Columbus, held meetings and performances in private homes and music stores and presented the noted Cuban-born guitarist Rey de la Torre in a public concert in Columbus.
The 1980s saw two different guitar interest groups in Columbus. One brought together guitarists working in a range of styles, including classical, folk and bluegrass. The other, the Columbus Classical Guitar Society, was formed in 1989 and dedicated to classical music.
When the Capital University Conservatory of Music’s guitar curriculum was in its early years under the guidance of guitarist Christopher Teves, the Conservatory sponsored a Classical Guitar Concert Series between 1991 and 1993.
A group of guitarists who had been attending and supporting the guitar concerts at Capital University’s Conservatory formally founded the Columbus Guitar Society in 1993 and assumed responsibility for curating the concert series. The Conservatory continued to provide fiscal and administrative support for the Columbus Guitar Society until 2010, when the society became independent from the Conservatory.
By the time the Columbus Guitar Society officially became a nonprofit organization in 2018, it had been supporting its professional concert series, Members’ Ensemble and a series of informal monthly gatherings for decades.
On the International Concert Circuit
Presenting world-class professional guitarists in concert in Columbus was one of the main reasons for founding the Columbus Guitar Society.
“Some enthusiasts wanted an entity that supported the notion of generating classical music with guitars. They wanted to be able to sponsor concerts to enrich the community,” said Eugene Braig, who has served as artistic director of the Columbus Guitar Society’s Guitar Concert Series since 2002.
The soloists who initially performed on the Concert Series were local professional guitarists of note. Not long after its founding, the Columbus Guitar Society started regularly presenting the winners of the prestigious Guitar Foundation of America International Concert Artist Competition.
“Anybody who wins that competition is going to be the cream of the crop, and so I would want that performer here,” Braig said.
Today, the society’s concert series presents four professional guitar recitals each season, bringing some of the world’s most distinguished guitarists to Columbus. Grammy Award winner Jason Vieaux, who has given multiple performances on the series, and guitar powerhouse Xuefei Yang are just two of the guitar luminaries to have performed on the series.
Fees for top-flight international soloists can be hefty. Since becoming an autonomous nonprofit organization in 2010, the Columbus Guitar Society has funded its concert series through ticket sales and individual donations.
“We are a classical concert series that has sustained itself solely on the proceeds of concert attendance and the few small donations that we get,” Braig said.
To stretch dollars and enliven programming through collaboration, the Columbus Guitar Society occasionally joins forces with other local organizations to present guest artists. The society presented performances jointly with CityMusic Columbus and, in collaboration with Early Music in Columbus, presented a concert by the world-renowned lutenist Hopkinson Smith.
Guitar Gatherings for All
Audience members for the Columbus Guitar Society’s professional concerts also have a chance to take the stage with the society’s Members’ Ensemble. Founded in 2001 by Waverly Wilkerson, that ensemble brings local professional and amateur guitarists together to rehearse for and perform two concerts each season to raise funds for the society.
And for anyone who wants to hang out and chat about, play and listen to guitars, for the Columbus Guitar Society hosts informal gatherings on the third Saturday of each month at 1 p.m. at Starbuck’s Coffee, 2450 E. Main Street, in Bexley. Highlights of the informal meetups, which have been going on monthly for about 25 years, are ad hoc performances in the “performance chair,” available to whoever wishes to play for the crowd.
“We talk about guitars, we snack we drink – because it is a café, after all – and we often swap guitars. There’s a lot of noodling (on instruments) and a lot of casual conversation. But if somebody’s in the chair to perform, we give them the respect and allow them to perform,” Braig said.
Into the Future
As it progresses well into its fourth decade, the Columbus Guitar Society will extend its reach into the Columbus community this season when it presents Guitar Foundation of America Competition winner Marko Topchii in concert on the new concert series at Our Lady of Victory Catholic Church in Marble Cliff, on Sunday, May 4 at 4 p.m.
The society’s leadership also has in sight pursuing grant funding to help develop the professional concert series which, like all of the society’s other activities, has historically been powered solely by the organization’s individual supporters.
“We have existed as long as we have with strictly volunteer operation, bringing some of the best guitarists in the world to town, while also giving anyone who wants an opportunity locally to be part of something related to the guitar,” Ferguson said. “It’s been an amazingly successful operation and fills a niche in the cultural scene that is simply unique and keeps this wonderful instrument going in the hearts and ears of anyone who’s interested locally.”
