Hundreds of thousands of guitarists served

With the CGC podcast nearing half a million downloads, our youtube channel closing in on two million views, and our website serving over 200,000 unique visitors each year we are grateful and excited to know that we are serving such a large and diverse audience around the globe. 

Hours of Video Watched

Between our Academy videos and our public youtube channel there was 31,920 hours of video watched around the world. That’s around 1,330 days or 3 and a half years.

Academy Members

Along with our public materials our main team focus is serving our CGC Academy Members. This community of guitarists is really the heart of CGC. With a dedicated, kind, and supportive group of musicians, it is a pleasure to serve this community. The Academy currently sits at a robust size without being so big that you feel anonymous. We intend to maintain this sense of diverse yet intimate community moving forward. Bigger isn’t always better. 

Hours of Coaching Calls

In 2018 we started a new initiative of offering 1-to-1 coaching calls between members and CGC faculty. This program has become very popular and has helped hundreds of guitarists get direct feedback and guidance each week.

Exams Submitted

Grade exams offer a chance for Academy members to set a goal, work alongside other members to reach that goal, and get detailed personal feedback. In 2019 we have 171 submissions full of focused and dedicated playing. 

Blog Posts

From inspiration to lessons, to in-depth research. Here are a few of the best posts from 2019:

CGC Member Podcasts

One of our fearless community leaders, Roger Ramirez, has done an outstanding job of putting together a podcast that is all about life in the Academy. Roger has interviewed many of the Academy members and shines a light on their story and their journey. You can listen to episodes of the Member’s podcast here: https://classical.guitarcorneracademy.com/cgcapodcast/

CGC Podcasts

The CGC Podcast is nearing 500,000 downloads as 2020 approaches. This year we enjoyed a variety of formats including solo episodes, interviews with the masters, the CGC Show, and special guests. Here are some of the favorites:

New Masterclasses

This year Andrew York, Laura Snowden, Rene Izquierdo, Connie Sheu, Dave Belcher, and Jacques Lee Wood all contributed their insights and inspiration to make the Academy better. Andrew York taught three of his own compositions including his ever popular piece “Home”. Rene Izquierdo taught an extremely in depth series of lessons on selected Brouwer etudes and Connie Sheu walked us through her interpretation of Capricho Catalan. The wonderful aspect about the masterclasses, besides the teaching, is getting an insight into the thought process of each teacher.

Member Meetups

From Sunny California with Connie Sheu’s Masterclass to cold and rainy New York for Guitoberfest 2019 we had some wonderful meetups this year. In the past years it was often when I traveled to different places that I would organize get togethers so that we could spend time together without a screen between us. In 2019 we saw several meetups that were initiated by the members of CGC Academy and it has added a wonderful dynamic to the community.

Scholarships and Sponsorships

This year we created a scholarship for trainee teachers at the Sydney Classical Guitar Summer School, awarded three ambassador awards at the CGC Summer School, sponsored the New York Classical Guitar Society and the Wilmington Guitar Society.

Offering scholarships and support to the guitar community will be a part of CGC moving forward.

New Teachers

We are fortunate to have welcomed three new teachers to the CGC family this year. Nicoletta Todesco has a masters from Yale University and hails from Venice Italy. She works on the events, production, and publishing at CGC.

Jame Erickson is based in Long Island and will be working with CGC Members on the coaching calls. Sanja Plohl, from Madrid, will also be teaching CGC students each week in the coaching calls.

With a core team of five musicians leading CGC, the members are in good hands!

New Books

The CGC library has been expanding over the past year and we now have two excellent repertoire books that allow our students to work from high quality print editions. Additionally, these books allow teachers to work from the CGC curriculum with their own students.

There are several more books under production at the moment so look for some new additions to https://cgcpublishing.com/ in the coming year.

Summer School

Summer School 2019 was perhaps the best yet. We had visitors from all over the world, an amazing teaching faculty, outstanding concerts and even a bluegrass band!

The 2020 Summer School is already sold out but you can join the waiting list if you still want to attend: https://www.classicalguitarcorner.com/summer

A great year!

Thank you to the CGC team for all their efforts, to the Academy Members for their dedication and camaraderies, and to all the enthusiastic visitors to CGC who help keep our community alive.

Onwards and upwards!

Simon