Summary
The GCC Guitar Program, directed by Chuck Hulihan since 1999, has been a presence in the Phoenix music community for decades, presenting concerts, workshops, and clinics to our community and offering a full schedule of classes focused on improving your guitar skills and expanding your musicianship. Our graduates are performers, composers, private studio owners and instructors, non-profit arts administrators, public, private, and charter school teachers, college faculty, free-lance musicians and lifelong learners who engage with the arts. The program prepares students to pursue an associate or baccalaureate degree, become a professional musician, or advance your musical skills and experience for personal enrichment. Courses include a four semester sequence of Class Guitar, Guitar Ensemble, Chamber Music, Studio Class, Guitar Methods, and Private Instruction.
Student Accomplishments
Since 2000, GCC guitar students have consistently taken top honors in the Maricopa Community College music competitions, for both solo guitar and chamber music. Students have attended and participated in masterclasses, workshops, festivals both locally and around the world including the Guitar Foundation of America conventions, National School Summit, Vanguard University Guitar Festival, and Grand Canyon Guitar Society and Phoenix Guitar Society events. Students have been accepted to top universities and conservatories including Peabody Conservatory, Örebro University, University of Texas Austin, Arizona State University, University of Arizona, University of New Mexico, Eastman School of Music, and Berklee College of Music.
GCC Guitar Ensembles
The guitar as an ensemble instrument is both a feature and focus of GCC Guitar. The Glendale Guitar Orchestra has been presenting four concerts a season for more than 20 years, including many concerts with guest artists, conductors, and composers. Composer spotlight programs often include a retrospective of a composer's catalog, and have included Maximo Diego Pujol, Frank Wallace, Mark Houghton, Vito Nicola Paradiso, Andrew York, Celso Machado, Jürg Kindle, Luc Levesque and many more. The orchestra regularly features world premiere performances, their live recordings are available on their YouTube channel GCCGuitar where their work interpreting the classics of the guitar ensemble repertoire serve as inspiration to ensembles around the world. In 2014 the GCC Guitar Ensembles Octet won the Guitar Foundation of America Ensemble Showcase competition and performed the world premiere of both Rex Willis' "18 and 49" and Mark Houghton's "Frippertron" at the 2014 convention at California State University Fullerton. The many small ensemble configurations of the GCC Guitar Ensembles over the years have performed on stage with artists such as Celso Machado and Roland Dyens for the Grand Canyon Guitar Society and performed as guest artists for festivals including Vanguard University, Sonoran Desert Guitars, and the GFA Regional Symposium at the Musical Instrument Museum.
Guest Artists in Residence
The GCC Guitar Program regularly hosts international performing artists and educators. Past guest guitarists include David Russell, Andrew York, Celso Machado, William Kanengiser, Scott Tennant, Nikita Koshkin, John W. Duarte, Adam del Monte, John Jorgenson, Gonzalo Bergara, Michael Chapdelaine, Joe Lopiccolo, Vahagn Turgutyan, Daniel Ward, Chris Burton Jacome, Michael Nigro, Chanson du Soir, Bekkers-Ku Duo, David Burgess, Martha Masters and Risa Carslon, Finn Svit and Jochen Brusch, Mesut Ozgen, Michael Partington, Randall Avers, Dale Kavanagh, Marcelo Coronel, Maximo Diego Pujol, Irina Kulikova, Cem Duroz, Craig Yarbrough, Quaternaglia, San Francisco Guitar Quartet, Santa Fe Guitar Quartet, Brazil Guitar Quartet, David Leisner, Jiji Kim, Lovro Peretic, Laura Snowden, Thibaut Garcia, Rovshan Mamedkuliev, Grisha Goryachev, Thomas Villoteau, Raphaël Feuillâtre, Vito Nicola Paradiso, Rex Willis, Francisco Munoz, Ryan Ayers, Frank Wallace, Matt Denman, Nestor Benito, Puerta-Vazquez Duo, Kupinski Duo, Frank Koonce, Tom Patterson, Jose Luis Puerta, Ruth LeMay, The Great Necks Trio, and Tom Sheely.