Guitar festival celebrates its 25th year of bringing musicians from around the globe to Radford

Summer breaks in the late 1970s found classical guitarist Robert Trent traveling from music college in Philadelphia across the Canadian border to Quebec, where he studied at summer music festivals.

“The teachers were from France and I had an immersive experience in music but also language and culture,” Trent said. “Those three summers transformed me as a musician and person, and I’ve been an advocate for international education ever since.”

Trent, a Radford University professor, wanted to bring that experience to students who might not be able to travel great distances. That led him to found the Radford University International Guitar Festival, set for its 25th iteration this year. The free event on Friday and Saturday features music from Chinese musicians, a lutenist from Cincinnati, the traditional Community Guitar Orchestra and more. 

The festival has been held for live audiences on campus every year except 2021, in the midst of the COVID pandemic. Even then, Trent was able to make it happen online, with performers doing their sets remotely.

“No one was allowed on campus, and that was a challenge,” he said. “In a way I guess it was easier for the artists. They didn’t have to travel, but I mean, there was no audience to clap for you after you were done. I really disliked it. I hope I never have to do it like that again.”

The festival in a normal year becomes a set of free lessons for students in grant-writing, publicity and a lot of other on-the-job opportunities.

“The first year I really did everything, because the students didn’t know a thing, and I didn’t either,” Trent said. “I was learning the ropes of, how is this going to work, how it will happen, so bit by bit I started assigning them the tasks, or asking for volunteers. … Who wants to do publicity? Who wants to work on this? Who wants to work on that?

“The only thing I’m really careful about is that they’re not fiscally responsible for anything.”

He remembered one student was nervous about picking up a performer who was flying to Roanoke, then driving them to Radford. 

“I said, ‘What, are you kidding? You have a captive audience for 45 minutes in the car. You can ask them anything, pick their brains,’” Trent said. “There’s one student I’m thinking of who did that and they encouraged him to do further study abroad, and then to travel. And I thought, this whole thing is worth it. It’s serving its purpose.”

Each interaction with a performer “is a seed planted,” he said.

“Without these experiences, without being exposed, they don’t know what’s possible, and so having these things come to campus … they see both sides of it, the organization side that they’re part of, and … working up close with an artist from a different place.”

Ryan Book was one of them. Book teaches multiple classes including classical guitar, music theory and music history at Sandhills Community College in Pinehurst, North Carolina. He’s been there for 16 years, starting the gig not long after he graduated from Radford.

Trent pointed him toward the Sandhills teaching job. Trent’s theory classes, along with learnings from another Radford music professor, David Zuschin, mitigated his inexperience, Book remembered. 

“It was a real, real mature job for me,” Book said. “The first year or two was really, really tough, but the training that I had, especially with Dr. Trent, Dr. Zuschin and other professors at Radford, it really just gave me the confidence to know that I could figure it out.”

From the time he arrived at Sandhills, Book has organized performances from guitar players around the world, directly inspired by his years helping out with the Radford festival.

“Once I got out of school and then I got my job here — all that was groundwork that could be laid. … I knew automatically, wherever I go, I’m going to try to sort of piggyback off of that. I may not necessarily do a festival, but at least be able to invite some people to come play, and open up a world of classical guitar to a community that really more or less didn’t have that,” he said.

This year’s performances

Hao Yang, James Piorkowski, Duo Chinoiserie (Bin Hu and Jing Xia) and Christopher Wilke are featured this year. 

Yang, a guitarist from China, in 2024 won first place at the Rhine (formerly Koblenz) International Guitar Festival and Academy’s Hubert Käppel competition in Germany, and second place in the Guitar Foundation of America contest, the biggest in the states. Trent said he has been trying to book her since last year.

Duo Chinoiserie is a husband-and-wife team from China, Bin Hu and Jing Xia. “They’re unique because … he plays guitar, but she plays the guzheng, which is a Chinese instrument,” Trent said. “That’s a big part of why we do the festival — first for students, but then also to share with the community things that haven’t been here, people don’t see it, they don’t hear it, I think, unless we do it.”

Wilke, who teaches at the University of Cincinnati-College Conservatory of Music, plays lute.

“The twist with Christopher that makes it extra interesting is he also composes his own music, for the baroque lute, bringing it literally into the 21st century,” Trent said.

Piorkowski, a guitarist from Buffalo, New York, will also be playing his original music. He, like everyone in the lineup, will do some teaching. The master classes, like the performances, are open to the community.

“A stipulation, at least from my side, and I think the students agree, is that they should also be good teachers,” Trent said. ”We’re a teaching institution, after all.”