Interview with Kenny Hill

I was in Iserlohn this summer and met American guitarist, luthier and composer Kenny Hill.
He is the third man who together with Alex Wang and Wolfgang Jellinghaus make up the driving power behind the Martinez Guitar Company.
I looked through a composition he had published, which Johannes Moller plays, and this seemed a good occasion to ask him his views on playing, making and writing.

Interview with Wolfgang Jellinghaus

Gerald and Wolfgang

I first met Wolfgang Jellinghaus in Chengdu, where he and i seemed to be the only ones capable of taking on a drinking challenge proposed by a couple of university administrators!
Needless to say, we beat them hollow (I think we did anyway – I seem to recall pitchers of Mou Tai being bandied about).
I learned that Wolfgang was one of the triumvirate who make up the Martinez guitar company, the other two being Chinese entrpreneur and luthier Alex Wang and Kenny Hill from America.
Wolfgang also produces his own brand of “Milestone” guitars, and I was lucky enough to grab an interview as he drove us to a concert at the Iserlohn Festival this year.

Iserlohn 2014 – photo impressions

Iserlohn 2014

Some photos of the festival – thanks to all who took part to make it a special place for making wonderful music and friends.

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China Sings! Kuang Junhong and the Iserlohn Festival Orchestra

It was an exciting occasion – the world premier of the first two movements of my concerto “China Sings” – Kuang Junhong played with great delicacy and fiery virtuosity, and the orchestra was superb. Watch this space for all three movements with symphony orchestra.
Iserlohn Festival Orchestra

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Las Meninas Bailan video plus

A couple of videos – the first is the rehearsal of my piece for Organ and Guitar Quartet played by Tobias Aehlig, the Amadeus Duo and the Gruber Maklar Duo. This is in the Oberstdat Church in Iserlohn – sorry the video content is boring, but it is more or less what the audience was looking at! Las Meninas Bailan refers to the famous painting by Velasquez and is a depiction of what happens below stairs! The main theme is a Spanish Christmas Carol, “Riu, riu, chiu” from the Cancionero de Uppsala manuscript.

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Iserlohn 2013 – part 1

It’s that time of year again, and I am in Iserlohn (Schwerte, actually, which is where the festival relocated).
This year there is a large contingent from China – students from Chengdu with their teacher Xu Bao, and also from Shanghai with Danny Yeh. I know most of the Chengdu students from my visit earlier this year

 

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