Vietnam International Fingerstyle Guitar Festival 2016 will take place at the Youth Theater in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City Conservatory of Music on July 19-20 respectively.
The event is part of the International Finger-Style Guitar Festival (IFSGF) comprises a series of international fingerstyle guitar concerts. The annual event has been organized continuously since 2010 in Asia. With the participation of famous fingerstyle guitarists from many countries, this year’s IFSGF features 16 concerts in 7 countries. The festival started on June 29 in Japan. It will continue in Korea, Taiwan, China, Vietnam, Malaysia and finish on July 23 in Singapore.
Artists of IFSGF 2016 will perform in Vietnam, including Andy McKee from the U.S, Huang Chia-Wei from Taiwan (China), Masa Sumide from Japan, Erica Eunji Cho and Sandra Bae from South Korea and Tung AG of Vietnam.
Very few guitarists nowadays are as well known by the mass as fingerstyle guitar master Andy McKee. At the end of 2006, he became a worldwide iconic figure after the performance of his song “Drifting” gained huge favor on Youtube and MySpace with more than 46 million views, and went viral on the Internet. Until now, it is still rated as the most successful music clip of this genre.
Huang Chia Wei organized the fingerstyle guitar contests and concerts in Taiwan to boost fingerstyle music in his country. He also organized many global concerts to promote fingerstyle guitar to people. The differences in the environment around Huang Chia-Wei and in his life created the diversity in his music. Sometimes his music is romantic and emotional, sometimes it can calm you and make you dance.
Hailed by fellow guitarists as a ‘brilliant groove player’, Masa Sumide stretches the limit of the acoustic guitar and lets it sing with his unique one-man band style and melodic compositions. His repertoire runs from jaw-dropping funky tunes to sophisticated yet accessible jazzy, bluesy grooves. His music is full of beats and rhythm. It will make you want to dance all the time
Tung AG is well known for his tutorial video of “Sunflower” by Paddy Sun after 10 months of learning fingerstyle guitar by himself in 2011. Born in 1989, Tung AG (real name is Tung Do Duong) is the founder and president of Vietnam Fingerstyle Guitar Organization (VNFS), the first and currently still the only organization known of fingerstyle guitar genre in Vietnam.
Erica Eunji Cho was born in 1995 in Sao Paulo, Brazil. She started playing guitar in fingerstyle in 2011 and has had many arrangements, covers highly appreciated on YouTube. Erica took one month of guitar lesson and then starting to learn by herself.
Sandra Bae,22, is a Korean freestyle guitarist and music composer who is currently signed to record label Namuare in South Korea. She was born in South Korea and was living in Pennsylvania in the U.S before returning to her native country in 2013. She wrote on her YouTube channel: “I was just a girl who loved playing music in her room. I started sharing my music with the world and my dreams started to come true. Now I am a full time musician!”
