Scott Cmiel
Scott Cmiel is Chair of the guitar and musicianship departments at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music Preparatory Division and Director of the guitar program at San Francisco School of the Arts.
Articles by this Author
Zoran Dukić, a guitarist highly acclaimed in Europe but little known in the U.S., performed at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music on Friday night, presented by the Omni Foundation and San Francisco Performances.
Classical guitarist Eduardo Fernandez gave an excellent recital on Saturday evening, presented by San Francisco Performances and the Omni Foundation for the Performing Arts, at the Marines’ Memorial Theatre.
Since the New York Times praised his 1977 U.S. debut, saying, “Rarely has this reviewer heard a more impressive debut recital on any instrument,” Eduardo Fernandez has been a North American favorite. The Uruguayan six-string virtuoso masterfully interprets music from Bach to contemporary guitar.
The Left Coast Chamber Ensemble presents Minette, an arrangement for two guitars of an opera by Hans Werner Henze constructed on the principles of Beethoven’s Diabelli Variations and based on a short story by Balzac about vegetarian cats that form the Royal Society for the Protection of Rats. Guitarists should be eager to support such adventurous programming.
Classical guitarist Isaac Bustos gave an outstanding recital Saturday, presented by the South Bay Guitar Society, at the beautiful Petit Trianon Theatre in San Jose. Born in Nicaragua and educated in the U.S. from age 13, Bustos demonstrated the heartfelt intensity often associated with South American guitarists, in addition to the technical polish and stylistic diversity seen in the best North American–educated artists.
Since making his Carnegie Hall debut at age 19, classical guitarist Jon Mendle has rapidly built a reputation as a versatile, innovative musician. He tours with Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble, is a member of both the San Francisco Guitar Quartet and the Pacific Guitar Ensemble, and as a solo artist recently released an exquisite first album, L’Infidele (In a Circle Records).
Beijing-born Xuefei Yang made her fourth appearance at Herbst Theatre on Saturday, presented by San Francisco Performances and the Omni Foundation for the Performing Arts. The first Chinese classical guitarist to launch an international career, Yang was so accomplished as a teen that John Williams gave two of his own Smallman guitars to the Beijing Conservatory so that she would have excellent instruments to play.
Sergio and Odair Assad have moved audiences and inspired guitarists around the world for over 30 years with revelatory performances of Latin American music and European classics, original compositions, deep musicality, and supple, almost telepathic, guitar duo performances. In the late 1990’s they began to expand their ensemble sound in a series of collaborations with musicians like Dawn Upshaw, Gidon Kremer, Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg, and Yo-Yo Ma.
San Francisco is one of the best places in the world for people who love the classical guitar. The Omni Foundation and San Francisco Performances regularly present the world’s finest performers in concert, and the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, which has developed what many say is the best guitar program in the country, is educating a new generation of expressive and interesting artists.
Classical music advocates often take a Eurocentric view of music history that leads them to question the importance of the guitar and its repertoire. In a recent 
Scott Cmiel is Chair of the guitar and musicianship departments at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music Preparatory Division and Director of the guitar program at San Francisco School of the Arts.