December 2020 Online Meeting: John Olson

Thursday, December 3, 2020, at 7:00 PM

Online Zoom meeting

What Are the Most Popular Classical Guitar Pieces?
The guitar has a rich and ever-expanding repertoire. However, a detailed understanding of what pieces are most frequently performed in concert is rare. This talk will include a discussion of which pieces are the most popular, as revealed by informal survey, and an in-depth analysis of the concert repertoire performed over the past 13 seasons at the New York City Classical Guitar Society.

The presentation will be followed by our Open Mic. Sign up in advance to play — see the Member Events page for details. NYCCGS Member Events are free and open to all members and first-time guests.

Guitarist John Olson pursues an eclectic life in music, science, and arts leadership. As a guitarist, he performs with the Olson/De Cari Duo and the Brooklyn Guitar Quartet. He has released two CDs with the Olson/De Cari Duo: Quiet Songs, which contains baroque and twentieth-century music for solo guitar and guitar and voice, and Eve’s Diary, featuring new song cycles and arrangements written for the Duo by David Leisner, Frank Wallace, João Luiz, and Clarice Assad. He has studied guitar with David Leisner, Jon Harris and Neil Anderson, and organ and baroque performance practice with organists Rick Erickson, Rodney Gehrke, and Christian Lane.

Since 2007, John has served as President of the New York City Classical Guitar Society. John has revitalized the organization and made it a thriving and central part of the city’s guitar community. From 2014 to 2019, John served as a member of the Board of Trustees of the Guitar Foundation of America. John has organized a series of Guitar Society Summits for leaders of similar organizations, and has led panel discussions on arts administration and career management at the GFA Convention and the Yale Guitar Extravaganza. Since 2013, John has served as Director of the annual Ben Verdery Maui Guitar Class.

Also a respected scientist, John received his PhD from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and has performed research for over 25 years in academic and industrial settings. He is dedicated to bridging the worlds of science and music through his Science/Music Commissioning Project, which seeks to expand the repertoire for guitar and voice and explore connections between science and music through song.