EuroStrings – the European Guitar Festival Collaborative is pleased to announce the Tampere Guitar Festival 2020 that will take place on 1–8 November 2020. This Finnish festival will feature five EuroStrings Artists: Carlo Curatolo (Italy), Ema Kapor (Serbia), Agustín Nazzetta (Argentina), Lovro Peretić (Croatia), George Tarlton (United Kingdom) as well as the winner of the 2019 Second EuroStrings Guitar Competition, Mateusz Kowalski (Poland). Mateusz’ online concert is scheduled for Sunday 8 November 2020.
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EuroStrings Artists Online Concerts

• Carlo Curatolo – Sunday 1 November 2020
• Ema Kapor – Monday 2 November 2020
• Agustin Nazzetta – Tuesday 3 November 2020
• George Tarlton – Wednesday 4 November 2020
• Lovro Peretić – Thursday 5 November 2020
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Online Masterclasses

• Marco Socías will give masterclasses to the EuroStrings Artists.
• The EuroStrings Artists will give masterclasses to young students from Finland
• EuroStrings Artists will also be involved in outreach projects during October–November, with Guitar for All at the Sofiakylä care home for disabled people and the 35 Koukkuniemi retirement homes in Tampere.
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About Tampere Guitar Festival and Competition 2020

Tampere Guitar Festival is celebrating its 16th anniversary in 2020. Most of the concerts, as with the competition, are being held online. In November, we start with daily online concerts of five EuroStrings Artists. Due to COVID-19 restrictions, the only live concerts will be performed by artists from Finland: featuring the leading Finnish classical guitarists Petri Kumela and Ismo Eskelinen, who will both be releasing their new albums in concerts that are also being streamed online for worldwide viewing.

This is the 3rd International Classical Guitar Competition of Finland, organised by Tampere Guitar Festival in association with Tampere Music Academy. This year, with the international Covid-19 situation, Tampere began its competition in July 2020: it was organised as a 2 in 1 Online Competition together with Guitar Festival of Petrer, Spain. The Final of the International Classical Guitar Competition of Finland will be on Sunday, 8 November 2020. The Youth Category of the 3rd Classical Guitar Competition of Finland, which is in three separate ages groups, will be held on 7–8 November 2020 as an online competition.

For more details about the Competition, see https://tgf.fi/guitar_competition.
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Guitar for All – all over Europe

The Guitar for All project aims to bring guitar music to new locations and to people who are not able to enjoy culture so easily. This year, for example, the Tampere Guitar Festival in Finland will provide classical guitar concerts for the elderly, in collaboration with the Koukkuniemi retirement home, bringing music to the people who are not able to leave their homes or beds. The COVID-19 pandemic has forced us all to find new ways – since visits are not allowed at the moment, the musical greetings will be done online. In this way, the music can be distributed to all 35 units of the retirement home and hundreds of seniors may enjoy listening to the music together. Another example is Sofiakylä, a care home for disabled people, where again, due to restrictions, online concerts will be given. Music has been proved to have a relaxing and therapeutic influence.

The year 2020 has been a very different one for everyone. Hopefully, in 2021, everything will go back to normal and move from online concerts back to live events, however, some of the best new practices which have been developed during the lockdown could also be continued and hopefully will keep evolving.

For the complete programme of the Tampere Guitar Festival and Competition 2020, see: https://tgf.fi/home
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