“Saturday evening’s Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra performance began with a rousing performance of Emmanuel Chabrier’s ‘España’ and closed out with some well-chosen orchestral highlights from Georges Bizet’s ‘Carmen,’ ” writes Garaud MacTaggart in Sunday’s (6/12) Buffalo News (N.Y.). “But the bulk of the concert was devoted to the guitar—the finals of the seventh biennial JoAnn Falletta International Guitar Concerto Competition, featuring Anton Baranov, Andras Csaki and Alec Holcomb—with Baranov coming out on top.” Baranov also won in the Audience Favorite and the Musicians Choice categories. The competition comes with a first-place prize of $10,000, $3,000 for second place, and $1,500 for third place. Previously, “Baranov won the Guitar Foundation of America International Concert Artist Competition in 2013 while Csaki placed second.… In the Pittaluga Guitar Competition in Italy… Csaki won in 2009 and Baranov came in third four years later. Holcomb, the youngest of the three guitarists … won the 2012 Parkening International Young Guitarists Competition and came in fourth three years later when he stepped up to the senior Parkening tourney…. For the finals [in Buffalo], Holcomb and Baranov opted to perform Ponce’s Concierto del Sur for Guitar and Orchestra while Csaki chose Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s Concerto in D major, op. 99.”
Posted June 15, 2016
