CGC 2023 In Review
We had a great year at CGC! As we head toward the beginning of a new year, now is a great time to look back at what happened in 2023. As we celebrate the wonderful things that have been happening in the last year we’re already working toward some exciting things to come next year. We hope you’ll enjoy this year in review. Please leave a comment and let us know what classical guitar memories you’ll remember from 2023.
CGC Summer School 2023
This year’s Summer School was the first after a four-year break due to COVID. Along with 70 Summer Schoolers, there were eight teachers including guest artist Jeff Peterson. You may know Jeff from our sister site Ukulele Corner. He is a Grammy-award-winning slack-key guitarist, classical guitarist, and ukulele player. Jeff brought with him some wonderful Hawaiian vibes that made for some equally wonderful musicmaking.
Just after the CGC Summer School, the Team gathered in New York for the 2023 annual Guitar Foundation of America convention. This was a ton of fun and allowed us to spend time with friends and colleagues in the classical guitar world, hear some great music and lectures, and enjoy one another’s company.
The CGC Podcast
We only released four podcast episodes this year, but we have many more coming up and the four that did release are all great episodes you should check out.
One of our favorite episodes featured the album release by Benjamin Verdery called “A Giant Beside You.” In this episode Simon interviewed Ben to talk about making the album, the compositions featured on it, and you get to hear high-quality samples from different tracks throughout. This was a great conversation featuring some wonderful music!
The CGC Blog
Over 2023 we published more than a dozen blogs, including brand new repertoire lessons, articles for beginner guitarists, and much more. Here are some highlights:
The CGC YouTube Channel
Over at YouTube we released 18 videos this year. These included new duet repertoire performances, new solo repertoire lessons, collaborations with Jeff Peterson as well as luthier Gary Lee, and more.
- Romanza (Spanish Romance) for guitar: Full Lesson [with free PDF]
- Duet in G by Ferdinando Carulli
- The Black Cockatoo Flying Alone by Richard Charlton
- Domingo Semenzato: Choro for Guitar and Ukulele (feat. Jeff Peterson, ukulele)
- Napoléon Coste: Lesson 24 [PDF + TABs]
- Humidity and the Guitar with Luthier Gary Lee
- What Guitar is that?
New Books
Integral to the revisions and improvements we are continually making to the curriculum at CGC Academy, we have published two new books this year.
- Progressive Sight Reading for Classical Guitar
- Easy Classical Guitar Music: Volume 1
In addition to the these new volumes, we also updated one of our books from 2018, Christmas Songs for Classical Guitar. This book of arrangements by Dave Belcher features ten total arrangements, including five new arrangements.
CGC Academy in 2023
2023 was also a great year for CGC Academy, our online school for classical guitar. Our goal is to serve the classical guitar community with high-quality educational content, and so a big focus for us this year has been improving the curriculum and the overall member experience for the Academy. Here are some of the new things that have happened this year:
New Courses
- We added 6 New Courses in 2023:
- Warmup Routines (7 lessons at different levels). These are currently only available to members of the Academy, but check out Simon’s 5-Minute Warmup routine here!
- Scales and Arpeggios (with 40 lessons spread across all 8 grades). Here’s a sample lesson.
- Graded Duets (with 20 lessons covering the first four grades and more to come). Here’s a full sample lesson from the course, with downloadable PDF of the score, audio backing tracks, and full lesson and performance videos. And you can learn all about the course and its creation from Simon, Niki, and Dave in this podcast episode.
- Cadences (a music theory course from Niki with 10 lessons, also at different levels).
- A brand new course on Renaissance music (the first few lessons are already out);
- The first 9 units of lessons of Progressive Sight Reading for Classical Guitar are also now available, exclusive to members of the Academy.
New Repertoire Lessons
- New Repertoire Lessons:
- Romanza
- Coste’s Lesson 24
- Barrios’s El Sueño de la Muñequita
- Calatayud’s Vals
- Carcassi’s Prelude
- Carcassi’s Siciliano…with more on the way
Plus More…
- We have just moved to a new weekly schedule for our live sessions: there is now one live session every week, alternating between Open Mics and Live Performance Seminars;
- We added the ability to get quick feedback from the CGC Team on member Progress Journals;
- We added a new Member’s Guide, a thorough repository of information on everything at the site with common questions answered;
- We added new Technique Assessments, which are great self-assessment tools for you to know where to start in the curriculum, as well as when you’re ready to move on to what’s next (and these have also replaced the Practice Routines as the technical portions of the Grade Exams).
Want to become a member so you can start digging in to all of this new material, plus our world-class curriculum and wonderful community? Join CGC Academy today!
CGC in 2024
We have a lot planned for 2024 at Classical Guitar Corner. We can’t wait to share another year with you.
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