Organisation of the Festival
Considering the organisation of the festival, it was a continuation of last year's concept: three days Masterclasses and workshops in the Artez Conservatory, part of the competitions and the concerts in the Concordia Theatre. It's a formula which has proved to be working.
Generally speaking the masterclasses and workshops were scheduled in the morning and afternoon, with some free time in between for the lunch concerts. This year there were no parallel activities during the Scharpach Competition Category 1 (students and professionals), so there was ample opportunity to attend the first rounds.
Unfortunately this appeared not possible for the amateur sections of the competition, so I missed them because of the workshop schedule.
The special details this year:
- A Seminar was organised with a number of luthiers as a guest. The subject concerned modernities and traditions in guitar building. Amongst others Theo Scharpach and Bert Kwakkel showed up with their guitars, so there was a possibility to try them.
- Annette Kruisbrink, one of the Dutch composers for guitar, had a stand with her work.
- (Again very practical!) also this year there was a locked "guitar garage" on the higher floor of the Concordia Theatre. Considering the value of the guitars of some of the players (both financially and emotionally) it was a relief that they could be stored on a safe place, even though I have not heard of theft and damaged guitars during the last three festivals.
- The mailings (city map, masterclass and workshop schedule, location data and the list of contestants for the Scharpach Concours) were of good quality. The timely update service of the schedules was a good thing. Maybe for next year it is an option to use schedules per day wit a larger font. The Excel sheet was scaled down too much, which made the schedule hard to follow.
The only problem I experienced myself -and that's my own fault- was the crowded programme: I you purchase both the Classical Professional package and the Let's Improvise package, you'll have to watch the clock! As a consequence I could not attend all events, or just get a touch of it. So next year I will restrict me to a Classical package.