The second incarnation of the competition will take place May 28-30 and the rivalry promises to be fierce.
By Melonie Magruder / Special to The Malibu Times
It’s a good thing Andrés Segovia decided to apply his innovative finger-plucking technique to some works by Johann Sebastian Bach and establish the guitar as a bona fide classical instrument for the 20th century. Otherwise, the Parkening International Guitar Competition, held every three years at Pepperdine University, might not have come into existence.
Chaired by Christopher Parkening, the university’s Distinguished Professor of Music and one of the world’s preeminent masters whose recordings and international performances have set the bar for classical guitar, the second incarnation of the competition will take place May 28-30 and the rivalry promises to be fierce.
Parkening’s muse and first mentor was Segovia, whom Parkening met while still a teenager. By the time Parkening was 20 years old, he was playing upward of 100 concerts per year throughout the world with the most prestigious orchestras and under the baton of the most respected conductors in classical music. However, at a certain point he quit performing and retired to spend his days trout fishing at a Montana ranch, enjoying his solitude with the likes of Benny Goodman.
But a spiritual awakening brought him out of retirement within a few years and his prolific output (more than 25 years with EMI, 19 CD recordings, international concerts, master classes, performance DVDs) has all been, as with Bach, “Soli Deo Gloria,” or, as Parkening said in an interview with The Malibu Times, “To God alone the glory.”
The competition itself draws some of the finest musicians from throughout the world.
“When I joined the Pepperdine faculty in 2002, I shared my vision to create a world-class guitar competition with worthy prizes,” Parkening said. “Thanks to supporters like Dorothy Stotsenberg, the Ahmansons, and Manny and Juanita Del Arroz, we were able to offer the biggest cash prize of any guitar competition in the world.”
This month’s competition features guitarists from 11 nations, including Romania, Finland, Uruguay and Ukraine. The Young Guitarist Competition portion of the event, designed for musicians 17 and younger, features competitors from the U.S., Korea and Italy.
Judges for the competition are “world class,” Parkening said, and will include former president of EMI Classics, Costa Pilavachi; 10-time Grammy producer and judge of the Van Cliburn competition, Thomas Frost; and principal harpist for the New York Philharmonic, Nancy Allen.
“The idea was to get the guitar out of this little box and put it in front of an audience as a classical instrument,” Parkening said. “So we have difficult required pieces like a fugue by Bach written for the violin, which I adapted to guitar, and the “Concierto de Aranjuez” by Joaquín Rodrigo.
“Segovia said that the beauty of the guitar resides in its ‘soft and persuasive voice’ and its poetry cannot be equaled by anything else,” Parkening continued. “And Chopin said that a guitar was a miniature orchestra in itself. So the judges will focus on musicianship, of course, but also on technique, their sound and their stage presence or the ability of the musician to communicate his art.”
The 2006 gold medalist of the Parkening competition was Pablo Sáinz Villegas, the Spanish guitarist who has soloed with the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, the Canberra Symphony Orchestra and the New York Virtuosi Chamber Symphony, among others. He has won more than 25 international music awards, including first place at the Andrés Segovia and the Francisco Tárrega international guitar competitions.
“The whole competition was for me an exercise of deep concentration to give my best under big pressure and to connect to the audience,” Sáinz Villegas wrote in an e-mail about his 2006 experience winning the Parkening competition. “I remember we all could feel the tension in the air because we were the world elite of the young generation of classical guitarists, and we all wanted to play well and win.”
The entire competition will be filmed in high definition for broadcast on KCET, with the finalists being accompanied by the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra.
“We like to give all the musicians a real personal story within the filming of the concert, so the audience gets to know the competitors,” Parkening said. “The priority is to create a prestigious competition and establish excellent financial and recording opportunities for these musicians, but also to show their humanity while identifying outstanding young guitarists.”
Sáinz Villegas said, “Winning the competition has been the cornerstone I need to develop my career in the right direction and I won’t ever forget all that [the competition] has meant to me and my career.”
All performances in the competition will take place at Pepperdine University’s Smothers Theatre. The Young Guitarist Competition takes place May 26 and 27, and the Parkening International Guitar Competition takes place May 28-30.
A special VIP package for the final round is offered for $65 and includes reserved, front row tickets to the final round and a private reception beforehand, 6 p.m. to 7 p.m., at Guido’s Restaurant with hors d’ oeuvres, live classical guitar music, and a presentation by Marnie Mitze, chief of staff and former managing director of Pepperdine’s acclaimed Center for the Arts. To purchase the VIP package, mention The Malibu Times Parkening VIP Package (for those who already purchased tickets to the final round, upgrades to the VIP reception can be obtained by calling the box office at 310.506.4522). Tickets to competition events can be purchased online at ticketmaster.com.