New Dimensions in Classical Guitar: Mesut Ozgen and Friends in a Multimedia Performance

Product Description

This award-winning DVD features guitarist Mesut Özgen’s multimedia concert performances of music by Anthony Newman, Pablo Ortiz, Benjamin Verdery, Anthony Gilbert, Robert Strizich, and Deepak Ram. In March 2004, a multidisciplinary artistic team from the film and digital media, theatre, and music departments at the Arts Division of University of California, Santa Cruz, led by guitarist Mesut Özgen, had launched the premiere performances of a multimedia concert series New Dimensions in Classical Guitar. A multicamera video production crew captured these premiere performances together with the beautiful acoustics of the UCSC Recital Hall. A delightful set of new guitar music is presented skillfully and artfully combined with visual accompaniments, comprising video, digital images, and lights. A one-hour selection from this DVD program was broadcast nationwide on UCTV and won a 2006 Telly Award for outstanding music/concert production. These visually enhanced performances will thrill guitar fans and enlighten a new audience to the unbound dimensions of classical guitar.

Review

Glimpse inside the future of concert art… –GuitArtColorful 20th-century musical extravaganza… –Register-PajaronianThe finest music DVD ever to have come my way, remarkable achievement… –Classical Guitar Magazine (UK)

About the Actor

Guitarist-composer MESUT ÖZGEN has performed and taught master classes throughout the United States, Spain, and Turkey and has been a guitar faculty member at the University of California, Santa Cruz since 1998. In addition to being a prizewinner in the International Portland Guitar Competition, he has performed as featured soloist in the International Paco Peña Guitar Festival in Cordoba, Spain, Santa Cruz Baroque Festival, Yale Guitar Extravaganza, and April in Santa Cruz: Contemporary Music Festival. His solo, duo, and ensemble music for guitar and other instruments is mainly based on or influenced by traditional Turkish music. Besides his own compositions, Özgen has long been a strong advocate of new music for guitar and frequently collaborates with other composers. His eclectic tastes, rooted predominantly in traditional and folk musics of the world, have inspired composers to combine avant-garde compositional techniques with traditional tunes and rhythms. Composers who have written solo, concerto, and various ensemble music for Özgen include Anthony Gilbert, Pablo Victor Ortiz, Anthony Newman, Benjamin Verdery, Deepak Ram, Christopher Pratorius, Robert Strizich, Peter Elsea, Charles Nichols, Paul Nauert, Yalçin Tura, Jack Vees, and David Cope. His degrees in music include Master of Music and Artist Diploma from Yale School of Music and Doctor of Musical Arts from Arizona State University. He was the first guitarist to be awarded the Dean’s Prize, which is the highest honorary prize of the Yale School of Music. He began playing guitar in 1981 while pursuing his study at the School of Medicine. During his seven years of medical practice, as a self-taught guitarist, he also played concerts and taught guitar in his native Turkey. He performed in master classes for many notable guitarists, such as John Williams, David Russell, Manuel Barrueco, Leo Brouwer, and Jose Luis Rodrigo. He has also studied early music on guitar, lute, and Baroque guitar with Jaap Schroeder, Rosalyn Tureck, John Metz, and Robert Spencer. DEEPAK RAM, senior disciple of world renowned bansuri maestro Pandit Hariprasad Chaurasia, is a master of the bansuri (Indian flute) and composer whose foundation is in North Indian classical music. In 2000, Ram won the South African Music Awards for Best Instrumental Album, for his album, Searching for Satyam. He collaborated with numerous musicians of various genres, including jazz pianists Darius Brubeck and Bheki Mseleku, Tunisian oud player and vocalist Dhafer Yousseff, and the popular South African band Tananas. Recently, Ram performed with South African musicians like Sibongile K