New York Guitar Seminar: The Music of Sérgio Assad

Born into a musical family in Mococa, a city 160 miles north of São Paulo, Sérgio Assad began creating music for the guitar not long after he began playing the instrument. He learned Brazilian folk melodies from his father and, by age 14 he was arranging and writing original compositions for the guitar duo he had formed with his brother Odair. At the age of 16, he and Odair began their studies under the best-known classical guitar teacher in Brazil at the time, Monina Távora, a former disciple of Andrés Segovia. Sérgio later went on to study conducting at the Escola Nacional de Música in Rio de Janeiro, and studied composition privately with Esther Scliar. 

Over the last thirty years, Assad has concentrated most of his efforts on building a repertoire for the guitar duo. He has extended the possibilities of the two-guitar combination through his arrangements of music by Latin American and European composers. He has also completed over 300 arrangements for different chamber music ensembles. He has been arranger for Gidon Kremer, Dawn Upshaw, YoYo Ma, Nadja Salerno Sonnenberg, Paquito D'Rivera, Turtle Island String Quartet, and LA Quartet among others. As a composer, Assad has completed over a hundred works for guitar, including pieces that have become part of the repertoire of many guitarists. In 2008, Sergio Assad was awarded a Latin Grammy for his composition Tahhyya Li Ossoulina. Assad’s orchestral compositions include the ballet Scarecrow, the concerto Mikis for guitar and strings, Fantasia Carioca for two guitars and chamber orchestra, and many others. 

Henrique Carvalho is praised for his refined and expressive musicality. Carvalho holds a bachelor’s degree in classical guitar from the State University of São Paulo and is currently pursuing a master’s degree in guitar performance at Stony Brook University. He also has received awards in international competitions, and has premiered several pieces, including South Loop, which Assad dedicated to him as part of his participation in the Guitar Foundation of America’s inaugural mentorship program. 

Born in the southern Brazilian city of Porto Alegre, Eduardo Gutterres is a multi-awarded guitarist and a doctoral candidate at Manhattan School of Music from, where he also teaches chamber music. He has received numerous prizes in Brazil and abroad. Eduardo’s artistic collaborations include a guitar duo with Gabriele Leite, with whom he has been performing since 2021 in venues including United Nations Security Council Meeting and the Chamber of Commerce Brazil-United States’ “Person of the Year” event. The duo was part of the inaugural reopening season at the Teatro Cultura Artística in São Paulo alongsideLang Lang, Joshua Bell, and others. Eduardo holds a Bachelor of Music with honors from the Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul and a master's from MSM. Eduardo is an Augustine Strings Artist and serves as Guitar Faculty at the Bloomingdale School of Music. He also hosts a series of podcasts for the Augustine Strings Wind Up, where he interviews guitarists part of the Augustine Strings family of artists.

Distinguished as one of the youngest laureates of the Guitar Foundation of America International Concert Artist Competition, Alan Liu is an active concerto, solo, and chamber performer, as well as an avid educator. Past concerto engagements include performances with the Prince George Symphony Orchestra, Victoria Symphony, and Vancouver Symphony Orchestra. In 2023, he made his Lincoln Center debut at Alice Tully Hall with the Juilliard Chamber Orchestra. He has appeared as a recitalist and guest artist at guitar festivals worldwide. Alan has premiered works by Paul Lansky with the Curtis Guitar Quartet on the Grammy-winning label Bridge Records, and works by Lars Aksel Bisgaard with Azura Sky Media. He has received prizes in competitions in Canada and Europe. Alan teaches guitar privately and serves as a guitar instructor and teaching assistant at Yale University. With degrees from the Curtis Institute of Music and the Juilliard School, Alan is the first guitarist in a decade to enter Yale School of Music’s doctoral program. Alan plays on Altamira Guitars by Martin Blackwell and Hanson Yao with Augustine Strings.