Welcome to Salies, the 4th edition of the Guitar Festival will open its doors on July 7th 2021 in Salies-de-Béarn.
Recognized by the Washington Post as “one of the most gifted guitarists on the planet,” Polish guitarist Marcin Dylla is a phenomenon in recent classical guitar history.
He will appear on July 10, 2021 in Salies-de-Béarn and will stay at the Hotel du Parc.
Numerous critics, connoisseurs and music lovers attest to the fact that Marcin Dylla is one of the world’s elite classical guitarists. He has earned this position, among others, through an unparalleled number of awards, including 19 first prizes from 1996 to 2007 at the most prestigious international classical music festivals around the world. His latest triumph was winning the gold medal at the Guitar Foundation of America 2007 International Competition in Los Angeles, considered the most prestigious guitar competition in the world, followed by a tour of over 50 cities in North America, Mexico and Canada during the 2008-09 season. Mr. Dylla made his recital debut at the Concertgebouw in November 2016 during a 2016/2017 season also holding a chair-in-residence at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music for the fall 2016 semester.
More recently, he has been invited to return to Mexico and Chile, as well as to give recitals throughout Asia, including Japan in Tokyo, Nagoya, Fukuoka, Hiroshima and Hokkaido. He performed in Taiwan at the Taipei National Concert Hall with the Taipei Symphony Orchestra, then at Carnegie Hall, and then began a two-month tour of North America with recitals on the East and West coasts.
In Europe, he returned to the Konzerthaus in Vienna and was invited to participate in the International Guitar Festival in Koblenz. Competition, a major classical guitar festival every year, where he is a beloved regular.
In 2006, Cecilia Rodrigodaughter of the legendary Spanish composer Joaquin Rodrigochose M. Dylla to perform the world premiere of a new work by her father entitled ‘Toccata’ (1933) recently discovered at the Reina Sofia Madrid Museum of Modern Art. In 2002, at the 7th International Guitar Convent in Alessandria, he was awarded a Gold Guitar Critics’ Prize for the best young guitarist.
Marcin Dylla was born in Chorzow in 1976 and received his first guitar lessons at Conservatory of Music Ruda Slaska. in his native Poland. From 1995 to 2000, he studied at theKatowice Academy of Music with Adi Wanda Palacz and completed his studies with Oscar Ghiglia, Sonja Prunnbauer and Carlo Marchione at Music Academies of Basel (Switzerland), Freiburg (Germany) and Maastricht (Netherlands), respectively.
He currently teaches guitar at the Music Academy in Katowice and at the Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster.
A springboard for young talent
Since its inception, the festival has encouraged the meeting of these masters of the guitar with students from surrounding schools and young talents in the discipline. A dozen students from music school of Salies will have the opportunity this year to exchange with Cassie Martin The first prize of the 2019 master class of the festival. They will perform alongside him on July 10th at the Jean-Monnet hall in Salies, as the opening act. “The first prize in our competition, reserved for young talent under the age of 30, is 3,000 euros and invitations to partner festivals throughout Europe. The winner of the first prize is a young artist, who is then accepted among the artists the following year,” explains Jean Masmontet. At 19, Cassie Martin has been collecting awards for a decade and is now devoting her life to performing with a repertoire ranging from early music to contemporary music.
The city of Fébus at the opening
For the second time, Orthez will host theopening concert ofthe festival on July 7. ” The garden of the Jeanne d’Albret house is a sumptuous setting with ideal acoustics for the guitar,” enthuses the president. The Brazilian trio In uno (guitar, saxophone, cello) will offer a “cheerful and playful recital that should make the audience want to follow the festival”. The next day, the stroll continues to the courtyard of the Navarrenx Arsenal . Held back in Bahrain by a new confinement, Thu Le gives way to the Spanish flame of Anabel Montesinos . “The opening acts for the concerts are the winners of the European partner festivals,” says Jean Masmontet.
For this 4th edition, the festival has a surprise in store for the first part on July 9, at Sauveterre-de-Béarn . The artistic director of the event will himself be on hand to perform a world premiere composition by Zad Moultaka in a world premiere. “It’s a score specially written for the festival,” smiles Jean Masmontet. A nice gift that will be followed by the sensitivity of Judicaël Perroy .
The headliner of this edition will perform in Salies-de-Béarn, on July 10th. A true prodigy of the instrument, Marcin Dylla succeeds in revealing all the beauty of the guitar and its possibilities, which he makes unlimited. It plays on its polyphonic character and the complexity of its sounds with remarkable ease. The fluidity and simplicity of his very expressive, delicate and sensitive playing make him a very rare phenomenon in the world of classical guitar. The Pole, who describes himself more as a musician than a guitarist, has won 19 first prizes in the most important international competitions in Europe and the United States. Finally, the Abet open-air theatre in Lahontan completes the journey. The Cuban Marco Tamayo should make the hundred-year-old plane trees dance.
Online ticketing: www.guitaresbearnfestival.com or in tourist offices. Free admission for children under 15 years old. Prices: 12 €; four-concert pass, 36 €; five-concert pass, 48 €.