Classical guitarist Antigoni Goni performs in Bozeman.
Antigoni Goni, a classical guitarist universally praised for her profound artistic sensitivity, exquisite sound and unmatched palette of colors and dynamics, graces the Ellen Theater stage in Bozeman at 7:30 p.m. May 11.
The New York Times lauds her as “an eloquent player with a graceful touch and a rich tone.”
Her recordings have been praised as “expressively poetic and technically exciting” and at least a dozen have been included in Enrique Robichaud’s classical guitar CD guide: Guitar’s TOP 100 Best.
As a child in the 1970s, during the dictatorship of Papadopoulos’s Junta, Goni was exposed to the resistance music of Mikis Theodorakis. She fell in love with the colors, rhythms, and pathos of this music, and at age 10 began studying guitar; a decade later she left Greece to continue her studies at the Royal Academy in London.
In 1988 she won the special prize for best interpretation of Latin American music at the International Guitar Competition in Havana; in 1990, she claimed the prestigious Julian Bream prize; and in 1995 she won first prize at the Guitar Foundation of America Competition.
After earning a master’s at The Juilliard School in New York City, Goni developed an impressive solo career. Since the early 1990s she has performed at venues around the globe, including the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, Covent Garden and Wigmore Hall in London, the Odeon of Herodes Atticus in Athens, the Philharmonic and the Cappella Sale in St. Petersburg, the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow, and Weill Recital Hall in Carnegie Hall in New York City.
She is the founder of the Guitar Department at the Pre-College Division of Juilliard, where she taught for 10 years. She also taught for a decade as an adjunct professor at Columbia University.
Since 2005 Goni has been professor of guitar at the Royal Conservatory in Brussels and was named Professor of the Year in 2015.
She founded and directs the Volterra Project, a summer guitar institute that brings international students and professionals together in Tuscany for 10 days of intense study and inspired performances.
Bozeman guitarist Stuart Weber has sent her transcriptions of his own works for the guitar and attended her institute in Tuscany. Impressed by the setting and the quality of students she attracted from all around the world, “I started offering a scholarship for one deserving artist from this country to study abroad with her in Italy.”
“She is one of the top classical guitarists working in the world today,” he adds. “I am very pleased to be able to introduce her to the Bozeman audience, which knows a thing or two about the classical guitar.”
Tickets are $19.75; call 406-585-5885 or order online at www.theellentheatre.com.