Vietnam International Fingerstyle Guitar Festival 2016 to take place

The festival is part of the International Finger-Style Guitar Festival (IFSGF) and comprises a series of international fingerstyle guitar concerts. The annual event has been held since 2010 in Asia. With the participation of famous fingerstyle guitarists from many countries, this year’s IFSGF features 16 concerts in seven countries. The festival started on June 29 in Japan. It will continue in Korea, Taiwan, China, Vietnam and Malaysia, and finish on July 23 in Singapore.

The event will feature the performances of six fingerstyle guitarists around the world: Andy McKee from the US, Huang Chia Wei from Taiwan (China), Masa Sumide from Japan, Erica Eunji Cho and Sandra Bae from the Republic of Korea (RoK) and Tung AG of Vietnam.

Very few guitarists nowadays are as well known by the masses as fingerstyle guitar master Andy McKee. At the end of 2006, he became a worldwide icon after his song “Drifting” exploded on Youtube and MySpace with more than 46 million views. It is still rated as the most successful music clip of this genre.

Huang Chia Wei organized the fingerstyle guitar contests and concerts in Taiwan to boost fingerstyle music in his country. He has also organized many global concerts to promote fingerstyle guitar to people. The differences in the environment around Huang Chia-Wei and in his life created the diversity in his music. Sometimes his music is romantic and emotional, sometimes it can calm you and make you dance.

Hailed by fellow guitarists as a ‘brilliant groove player’, Masa Sumide stretches the limits of the acoustic guitar and lets it sing with his unique one-man band style and melodic compositions. His repertoire runs from jaw-dropping funky tunes to sophisticated yet accessible jazzy, bluesy grooves. His music is full of beats and rhythm. It will make you want to dance.

Tung AG is well known for his tutorial video of “Sunflower” by Paddy Sun after 10 months of learning fingerstyle guitar by himself in 2011. Born in 1989, Tung AG (real name is Tung Do Duong) is the founder and president of the Vietnam Fingerstyle Guitar Organization (VNFS), the first and currently still the only organization known in the fingerstyle guitar genre in Vietnam.

Erica Eunji Cho was born in 1995 in Sao Paulo, Brazil. She started playing fingerstyle guitar in 2011 and has many pouplar arrangements and covers on YouTube. Erica took one month of guitar lesson and then learned by herself.

Sandra Bae, 22, is a Korean freestyle guitarist and music composer who is currently signed to record label Namuare in South Korea. She was born in South Korea and lived in Pennsylvania in the U.S before returning to her native country in 2013. She wrote on her YouTube channel: “I was just a girl who loved playing music in her room. I started sharing my music with the world and my dreams started to come true. Now I am a full time musician.”.