The sounds of classical guitar floated throughout the auditorium at the Jule Collins Smith Museum last Thursday evening. Classicalvguitarists Chad Ibison and Valerie Hartzell were brought to Auburn by the Chattahoochee Valley Classical Guitar Society.
"We come here all the time because of the Chattahoochee Guitar Society," Ibison said. "It's a great honor for me to get to play here."
Hartzell said she taught Ibison classical guitar, so the two were definitely familiar with each other's playing.
"They brought my old teacher here, and my professor, Dr. Andrew Zohn, thought it would be a good idea to have her and me play the same concert," Ibison said.
Zohn, an associate professor of guitar at Columbus State University, said the two had not initially planned to play together.
"We were supposed to have an American guitarist here named Mitchell Burka," Zohn said. "He had to cancel at the last minute, but we were able to get Valerie."
Zohn said it was an interesting pair because Hartzell was Ibison's original teacher and now Ibison is ready to graduate from Columbus State.
"We figured this would be kind of an interesting, kind of themed concert, music. "We'll start a technique, where we all kind of improv together," Ibison said. Ibison said technique, in particular hand technique, is important for playing classical guitar. "The right hand is a real critical thing in classical guitar," Ibison said. "It's a very strange thing plucking the strings because you have to do it in a particular way." Ibison's hands have been manicured to be a classical guitarist.
His right hand had long fingernails for plucking the guitar strings, while his left hand had regular nails.
Ibison compared playing classical guitar to an Olympic event, like curling.
"What a person's having to do on a single guitar is so ridiculously hard that that's part of the mystique to it," Ibison said.
Arash Noori, a Columbus State grad student, works with Ibison and said the Olympic comparison is the best way to describe classical guitar playing.
"That is the best definition to sum up the aesthetics of guitar playing," Noori said.
Ibison said he gets his inspiration from a few sources.
"When I was growing up, I liked (Andres) Segovia because that was kind of like the old master," Ibison said. "I like the British guy, Julian Bream, and things like that."
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