Audition Requirements
Applications with audition videos are due February 28.
Create an unlisted YouTube video including all of the following requirements:
1. Introduce yourself: include your name, grade, school, and county.
2. Answer this interview question:
What skills and characteristics do you have that make you an ideal candidate for PAVAN?
3. Perform the required piece: Barcarolle by Napolean Coste (download below). Do not include the D.C. al fine.
4. Perform an excerpt from a selection of your choice from the classical guitar repertoire (1-2 minutes in length).
5. Play the A Major scale with 3 octaves while alternating right hand fingers (download below).
6. Play f# harmonic minor in open position while alternating right hand fingers. (download below)
7. All of the audition requirements (introduction, interview question, required piece, free-choice piece, and scales) must be recorded in one continuous take. Do not record each element separately and edit them together.
Recording tips for guitarists:
- Use landscape view.
- Both hands must be visible in the video.
- Dress appropriately for an audition.
- Chose a place with a neutral background. (Not your unmade bed or open closet.)
About the Classical Guitar Division
Additional Information
The PAVAN Classical Guitar program helps students to build upon the instruction they receive from private and classroom instruction. The instructors afford the students a wealth of experience and perspectives in both group and individual settings. Their versatility enables returning students to be as challenged and motivated as they were in their first year.
The Classical Guitar program includes instruction in both ensemble and solo repertoire, music theory, and improvisation principles. Students receive individual private lessons as well as small-group master-class lessons designed to focus on skill sets of students with varying abilities. This individual attention is often what keeps students returning to PAVAN year after year, allowing a student to continue building upon his or her skill set. Ensemble repertoire is selected to challenge not just their guitar technique but to develop a broader sense of musicianship and artistic principles found in a collective performance experience.
The instructors provide further opportunities to hone specific skills, develop artistically, and foster a true appreciation for the arts in general with daily ‘mini-seminars’ that focus on topics such as sound, fingering principles to connect a line, nail care, tone production and career path options in music for performers and non-performers alike.
The students will also perform both in a large ensemble setting during the final program and in a more intimate “salon” setting for solo and small groups, demonstrating the full range of their accomplishments.
Faculty
Michael DeLalla
For almost three decades, guitarist/composer Michael DeLalla has forged a distinguished performing, recording and teaching career tempered by his belief that music(s) found around the globe share certain artistic principles. Along with his training as a classical guitarist, these influences find their way into Michael’s compositions, concerts and workshops.
Michael received both his Bachelor’s and Master’s Degrees from The Conservatory at Shenandoah University in Winchester VA. He studied with John Marlow, Glenn Caluda, and Pierre Bensusan, to name a few. His performing career includes solo concerts and tours nationwide as well as overseas. His recordings—four solo guitar CDs, one with the World Music ensemble Oxymora, and three with the Celtic trio The Unfortunate Rakes have received critical acclaim and airplay worldwide. Michael is also highly sought after in the studio, both as a guitarist and as a producer: he has appeared as a guest artist on over 40 recordings, and has over 100 titles to his production credits. He is also founder of Falling Mountain Music, an independent record label dedicated to acoustic music of all kinds, now in its 21st year.
Michael also teaches in a variety of settings. He taught for over twenty years at Shenandoah University, including private guitar lessons to both major and minor students, Beginning Guitar Class, Recording Practicum, Guitar Studio Class, Guitar Consorts and Guitar Ensemble. Also while at SU he regularly presented seminars to students in the Music Production and Recording Technology and Arts Management degree programs with an emphasis on building promotional tools, artists’ resources, and professional networking.
He is also active as a clinician and leader of workshops. Besides his workshops dealing with all facets of guitar technique, he presents workshops on Composition, Improvisation, the Creative Process, and a variety of topics dealing with the music business. In 2008 he presented a workshop titled “Strategies for Teaching Improvisation to Classically Trained Student Musicians” to the International Society of Improvised Music.
After thirty years in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley, Michael now resides outside of Boulder CO in the lovely village of Niwot. He serves on the faculty at Front Range Community College teaching Jazz History, Music Appreciation, World Music, Music Theory, and of course, Guitar.
Keith Filppu
Keith Filppu is a classical guitarist and guitar teacher based in Winchester, Virginia. He is an adjunct professor of guitar at Shenandoah University, where he teaches private lessons. He is an adjunct professor of music at Lord Fairfax Community College, where he teaches private lessons, group guitar, music theory and music history courses. He also teaches guitar lessons to students of all ages at the Shenandoah Conservatory Arts Academy and in his private studio.
For the past few years, he has been on the guitar faculty of the PAVAN Regional Governor’s School program. In addition to teaching, Keith is an active performer locally in a flute and guitar duo, the Cedar Creek Duo, and also as a soloist.
He has published two works of music with Clear Note Publications, Early American Waltzes, which consists of works he compiled and edited for solo guitar, and Cuentos De La Juventud by Enrique Granados, which Keith arranged for flute and guitar. One of his upcoming publications, an original composition for guitar trio entitled Emilio’s March, was performed at Yale University’s Guitar Extravaganza in March 2012. He has also worked as a music engraver for Clear Note Publications. Keith has written articles published in the Washington Guitar Society newsletter and Guitar Teacher magazine.
Keith holds a Master of Music degree in guitar performance from Shenandoah University, and a Bachelor of Music degree in guitar performance with a minor in writing and rhetoric from James Madison University. His principle teachers are Glenn Caluda, Risa Carlson, Kevin Vigil, and Keith Stevens.
Kevin Vigil
Dr. Kevin Vigil (Dr. V) holds degrees from Shenandoah University (DMA), Yale University, (MM) and the University of Memphis (BM). He joined the faculty of Heritage High School in the 2005 – 06 school year. He was named the 2014 Shenandoah University Teacher of the Year for LCPS and presented with a Sir Winston Churchill Commemorative Crown by Churchill Fellow Helen Sanderson for his work in guitar education (2017). In 2020, Dr. V was chosen as the Joan C. Edwards Distinguished Professor in The Arts at Marshall University.
Dr. V’s students have had workshops and masterclasses with Dr. Glenn Caluda, Risa Carlson, David Leisner, Martha Masters, Michael Nicolella, Benjamin Verdery, Jason Vieaux, Andrew York, Matthew Denman, Dr. Kenneth Meyer, Marco Sartor, Helen Sanderson, the Tantalus Quartet, the Canadian Guitar Quartet, the Texas Guitar Quartet and the Los Angeles Guitar Quartet. They have performed at the Radford University International Guitar Festival, and the 2006, 2009, 2012, 2014, 2016 and 2020 Yale Guitar Extravaganza at the invitation of Benjamin Verdery.
Dr. V has been published in several guitar magazines and journals and has presented lectures for the Guitar Foundation of America (GFA), Yale University, Philadelphia Guitar Society, James Madison University, Shenandoah University and Marshall University among others.
Several of his instruction videos are featured on GFAtv. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d7fUsUPViE8&list=PLUlfsWlbQHnAGtSdY7YB8wCCybSUflNCz
Dr. V currently serves as president for the Virginia Guitar Directors Association, Southern Division Representative for the NAfME Council for Guitar Education and on the Guitar Foundation of America's Education Committee.