Join some of the world’s greatest guitarists as the Guitar Foundation of America comes to San Francisco for the first time ever. It will take place at the new Conservatory facility as well as the Veteran’s Building.

The San Francisco Conservatory of Music Guitar Department will grow to around 40 students in the 08-09 academic year, and it will welcome Sergio Assad as a new Professor of Guitar. The Department recently inaugurated the bi-annual Wesley Day Solo Classical Guitar Recording Competition, in which the winner gets a fully funded cd production and a tour of California campuses. The winner of the first competition was Tanenbaum’s Bulgarian student, Antoniy Kakamakov.

As a new member of the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players, David Tanenbaum will be celebrating Elliot Carter’s 100th birthday with performances of Lumien in San Francisco and Sacramento. He will also perform Luca Francesconi’s thrilling A Fuoco with the group.

In February 2009, David will perform in his first tour of New Zealand. He will join the United Guitar Ensemble in German festivals in September, and perform in a Jorge Liderman memorial concert on September 14 at Hertz Hall, U.C. Berkeley.

David Tanenbaum will appear in chamber music festivals in Madison, Wisconsin, San Antonio, Texas and Napa, California; in the Boston Guitarfest; and, as co artistic director, in the GFA festival in San Francisco.

At GFA he will appear in a concert he created called Friday Night from San Francisco on August 8 at Herbst Theater. In that concert he will conduct the U.S. premiere of Sergio Assad’s Trois Brasiliens a Saint Paul, and perform, with Terry Riley, the U.S. premiere of that composers Moonshine Sonata.

He will also perform chamber works of Aaron Jay Kernis and Terry Riley. For concert dates, check the Schedule page.

David Tanenbaum’s 07-08 season included performances in Brazil; Henze’s El Cimarron in Tijuana Mexico; the world premiere of Jorge Liderman’s Imaginary Tunes with Quarteto Latinamericano at Cal Berkeley; a Julian Bream tribute at the 92nd Street Y in New York; and the world premiere of Terry Riley’s new triple concerto for two guitars and violin, Soltierraluna, with the Philadelphia Chamber Orchestra.

He also premiered Five Pieces for Guitar and Electronics by Ronald Bruce Smith in a featured concert at the Festival of New American Music in Sacramento, a concert which was voted the second best of the entire Sacramento year by critic Edward Ortiz. He wrote:

“…Tanenbaum delivered one of the most wide-ranging and intelligently conceived programs for one instrument in recent memory. And he left no doubt that he is one of this country’s best classical guitarists…This outstanding performance was clearly one of the best of the festival and of the concert year. It was delivered with intelligence and urgency, as if Tanenbaum was single-handedly ushering the classical guitar into the open-book realm of the 21st century.”