World Guitar Orchestra - Guitar Integration

World Guitar Orchestra will be conducted by Thomas Offermann and will consist of all official particiants of the festival. There will be organized two-hour rehearsals every day of the festival with the aim to prepare concert program which will be performed on the closing ceremony of the festival on March 25th, 2017.

World Guitar Orchestra is being organized for the first time at the Guitar Art Festival and it is part of a major project under the name "Guitar integration." This international orchestra of 150 guitars is made up of all official participants of the festival, will be headed by a prominent German professor Thomas Offermann.

Thanks to the support of the US Embassy, German Embassy, Embassy of Belgium, Embassy of Switzerland, Embassy of Portugal, Embassy of the Netherlands, the Polish Embassy and the Austrian Cultural Forum, we managed to implement the project World Guitar Orchestra. Also, the project was supported by companies from Malaysia Kerjaya Prospek Group Berhad, Natasha Guitars and Joyous Music Centre.

World Guitar Orchestra is a project of great importance for the festival. We managed to bring together students and guitar professors from all over the world, who will have the opportunity to learn together at the festival, exchange knowledge and experience, as well as to perform within the framework of the project and the world premiere of "guitar integration" at the closing ceremony on 25 March at 20.00 pm in the Youth Cultural Center in Belgrade.

The slogan of this year's festival - "Integration" has a direct referring to the aim of this project, which is to connect young guitarists from around the world in an orchestra, unification of different musicians, unification of different cultures in an educational program that has a great socially responsible and multicultural character.

The goal of forming an orchestra is not only a special performance at the festival, but through this project we want to establish a new mentoring model for better development and advancement of guitarists around the world. We want to integrate them through this project.

Participants of the project World Guitar Orchestra, which will come and perform on the 18th Guitar Art Festival thanks to the support of their Embassy, the Cultural Forum and companies:

Professors

Stephen Mattingly, United Stated of America

Nemanja Ostojić, United Stated of America

Thomas Offermann, Germany

Julia Malischnig, Austria

Hong Tee, Malaysia

Students

Branden Cravalho, United States of America

Jeremy Waldrip, United States of America

Evan Taucher, United States of America

Jeremy Hiniker, United States of America

Evan Hawk, United States of America

Aidan Wiley Lippke, United States of America

Jamie Johnson, United States of America

Ian Tubbs, United States of America

Ine Clerckx, Belgium

Siebe Chau, Belgium

Laurens Mannaerts, Belgium

Céline Karch, Switzerland

Daniel Schneider, Switzerland

Kacper Jan Romel, Poland

Ines Martins de Sousa, Portugal

Miguel Matos, Portugal

Tessa van der Veen, Holand

Nick Berndt, Holand

Edwin Alserda, Holand

Loy Shen Jian, Malaysia

Desmond Lim Dao Wei, Malaysia