Festival Location: Zihuatanejo, Mexico

Festival Type(s): Guitar Festivals, Contemporary Music Festivals, Traditional Music Festivals

The Zihuatanejo International Guitar Festival is an annual weeklong event that takes place every April in the Mexican seaside town of Zihuatanejo. The entire town will be full of music when invited international guitarists from all across the globe gather to play in several area venues simultaneously. Artists represent a wide variety of genres from traditional Mexican to classical and flamenco to jazz, blues, country and rock. Proceeds from the event will benefit the Escuela de Musica de Zihuatanejo Ezekiel Cisneros Cardenas (EMZ), a music school founded by Zihuatanejo's local musicians to further music education in the area, with classes in all levels of music instruction.

The Festival is structured as a purely volunteer and sponsor-funded event, made possible by the donations of products and services (transportation, lodging, meals, publicity, etc.) from local and international businesses and firms, the support of the media, the enthusiastic participation of the musicians themselves and their willingness to donate their music and expertise to a good cause.

The inaugural Guitar Festival was organized by local business owners and music lovers to bring an International music event to Zihuatanejo for the enjoyment of all. The enthusiasm of the musicians, sponsors and public made our first year effort a tremendous success, bringing in over USD $12,000.

The week of our first Guitar Fest was really overwhelming for our community. Although not scheduled at the height of our winter tourist season, Guitar Fest brought crowds of people into town, meandering from one downtown bar or restaurant venue to another.

We were all blown away by the fine music brought to us by both the local and the invited musicians. We had Jose Luis Cobo playing and singing his heart out, with his fabulous Mexican and Latin American ballads. The Guitar School that the Festival is raising funds for had several of its students playing regularly to appreciative audiences. Invited musicians Jenny Kerr and Phil Milner brought us good, down-home country and rhythm and blues; Steve Denyes had bunches of lively and folksey song-tales to tell; Bluesman Jimi Mamou was a fury on-stage and Nick Vigarino knocked the socks off the town with his slide guitar; singer/song-writer/guitarist Josie Kuhn wrenched our hearts and made us smile; J.L.Stiles, Emiliano Juarez and Xavier Brunelle wooed the crowds with their winsome blues; Steve Glotzer and local resident and guitar virtuoso Eric Reid gave us some beautiful tropical jazz and Brazilian rhythms, and Alexander Dunn and Warren McDonald, who came in from Victoria, Canada, gave us an astounding performance, gracing our town with the unique recitals which were the product of Alexander's own research and editing of little-known works of Beethoven written for guitar.

And that's not all - many more musicians gave us their wonderful best that week, and the Closing Concert, staged all afternoon long and well into evening at Ixtapa's beachfront Carlos 'n' Charlies restaurant/bar, was chock-full of some fabulous sounds.

The town was left starry-eyed from the amount of incredible music we were able to enjoy (as well exhausted from a greater dose of late-night enjoyment than we are normally accustomed to) - the guitars had the town rocking.

The music-packed 2005 schedule includes an afternoon opening concert featuring a number of invited and local musicians on Sunday April 3, several limited seating, gala dinner events held in a selection of our most prominent luxury restaurant venues during the week, a free children's concert that allows local youngsters the opportunity to enjoy the music and be the special focus of the musicians talents, a rousing closing concert, with the participation of our headlining musicians on Saturday April 9, and every evening of the week, from Monday through Friday, top Live Music Venues in and around central Zihuatanejo will feature different international and local artists in an intimate format.

In addition, on the event's final afternoon, Sunday April 10, downtown streets will be transformed into an open-to-the-public Guitar and Street Fair. Vendors will sell crafts and luthiers, or guitar makers, from Paracho, Michoacan - a town known worldwide for its finely-crafted handmade guitars - as well as guitar craftsmen from further afield, will display and sell selected, high-quality instruments of their own making. Displays and sales of these guitars will also be available at most Gala Dinner events during the week.

Zihuatanejo International Guitar Festival When, Where and More Info Please

Accommodation in Mexico

Like it? Be Sociable: