Read a review of the MIGF 2026 written by Cristian Perez on March 6, 2026:
2026 Miami International GuitART Festival 11th Edition
The Miami International GuitART Festival, organized by Florida International University’s Director of Guitar Studies Dr. Mesut Özgen, celebrates its eleventh year with another wonderful week jam-packed with events. This festival continues to be an essential pillar for the classical guitar scene in South Florida and a delightful addition to the culture here in Miami. Events included concerts, workshops, lectures, masterclasses, and a luthier expo. Local, national, and international artists congregated to contribute to the festival, including Rene Izquierdo, Celil Refik Kaya, Luis Zea, Deepak Ram, Hector Molina, Luciana Kube, Hande Cangökçe, and more.
The week-long affair kicked off with a masterclass open to the public by the young Turkish virtuoso Celil Refik Kaya. Dr. Kaya discussed fundamentals of posture and demonstrated how to get the most sound of any guitar you are playing with. What followed was an insightful lecture on how to approach social media with authenticity by Celil’s wife, Amanda. She talked about how she never intended to have a following on platforms like Instagram and TikTok, but circumstances serendipitously came together that grew her platform. Ms. Kaya emphasized that people follow what is unique, and that is achieved by showing off the sum of our parts as opposed to specialization in a niche while highlighting that consistency and being open to collaboration is key to growing your social media following.
The first day closed off with a concert by the Cuban virtuoso Rene Izquierdo. Mr. Izquierdo stunned the audience with a masterful performance of a split program consisting of music half from his native Cuba and the other half from guitar’s native Spain. During the concert, he talked about how playing Cuban music helps him stay rooted to his culture despite not being able to visit Cuba in over thirty years. The next day Mr. Izquierdo gave a masterclass as well. During the masterclass, he talked about efficient posture for proper breathing while playing, being aware of what you need to work on while practicing, and the necessity of planning all your fingerings to ensure smooth playing.
Dr. Celil Refik Kaya gave the next concert of the festival together with the festival director Mesut Özgen, featuring compositions of their own and repertoire by Manuel de Falla, Ferdinando Carulli, and Astor Piazzolla. Dr. Kaya, in his solos, let the music and his artistry speak for itself, which was brilliant, colorful, and detached from technical mishap. For the second half of the program, he was joined by Dr. Mesut Özgen for guitar duets as well as a piano and guitar composition “In Honor of Lou Harrison” by Dr. Ozgen, performed by Dr. Kaya and the virtuoso pianist Sinan Cayir.
On Tuesday, Luis Zea took the stage to give us a performance to remember. His repertoire choice spanned across the centuries, from the Renaissance to contemporary Latin American composers and featured arrangements he had made. His performance of La Vida Canta en Navidad by his fellow countrymen Henry Martinez was given a standing ovation. Maestro Zea’s playing was pure, noble, and humble much like the man behind the instrument. In his masterclass that came the day after, he discussed how the musicians must think of themselves as a storyteller, and understanding when to use free stroke versus rest stroke to serve the music better.
Federico Bonacossa, faculty at FIU’s school of music, gave a lecture regarding how to approach composing using the guitar. He talked about how, despite the limited range and voicing opportunities, the guitar has special characteristics that allow for unique articulation and timbre changes that you wouldn’t get with the piano, which is the most common instrument used when composing. Dr. Bonacossa demonstrated, using his own compositions, the different possibilities that can be achieved with the different perspective that using the guitar offers.
Deepak Ram, an Indian bansuri virtuoso, senior disciple of world-renowned bansuri maestro Pandit Hariprasad Chaurasia, shared the stage on Wednesday night together with Mesut Özgen. Mr. Ram started the evening with improvisations on an evening raga to set the tone for what was to come. They closed their program with Mr. Ram’s Surya, a hypnotic and kaleidoscopic work that wowed the audience. He also gave a lecture on Indian raga and tala, and he elaborated on how ragas are constructed, the myriad of rules that must be followed during an improvisation, and the different rhythmic patterns (talas) can be paired with ragas to offer a rich variety of possibilities within Indian classical music.
Thursday night featured the collective Caribbean Dreams, composed of members Hector Molina, Elvis Martinez, Luciana Kube, and Guillermo Faccioli. They played a variety of popular music from different Latin America countries with an emphasis on Venezuelan music to an enthusiastic audience who responded to their performance with a standing ovation!
On Friday, Dr. Özgen gave a lecture regarding the bio-mechanical and physiological aspects of playing the guitar, going into the minute details on all the underlying muscular mechanics and how that ties into learning to play in the most efficient way possible. After him, the Italian piano-guitar duo Mastrini-Lazzeri gave a workshop on understanding the importance of fundamental technique and how important it is to make sure to be aware of how you are breathing while you are practicing. The following masterclass by Sandro Lazzeri, the guitarist of the duo, went over how fingering choices should be made with ease in mind, as it allows for the most artistic expression to be made.
Hande Cangökçe played on Friday night a repertoire fully composed of Turkish folk song arrangements she had done herself. This concert was a musical eulogy to Kemal Ataturk, the founder of Republic of Türkiye. Her playing was particularly soulful, focused, and refined.
On Saturday, the luthier expo opened; this year featured Bill Glez and Roldan Perez guitars on showcase. The FIU Miami GuitART Orchestra gave a concert on Saturday afternoon, featuring a potpourri of different music that brought in local talent including alumni Carlos Serrano and Felipe Carvajal playing in duo, Cristian Perez playing solo and duo together with the current student Victor Carvajal, Siboney Godoy on violin, and Joshua Ewers on double bass. The evening closed with the Italian duo Mastrini-Lazzeri who gave a performance of their latest genre-defying album “Ghost.”
The final day of the festival started with Freddie Bryant’s workshop, star of the closing concert, giving a lecture of the intricate components of Brazilian jazz, specifically bossa nova and samba, going into detail about the different rhythmic patterns, and it comes together into his own compositions. The first concert of the day was presented by the Cuban early music specialist Liamna Pestana, giving a special concert on Baroque and Romantic guitars, performing music from the seventeenth, eighteenth, and early nineteenth centuries, meant to showcase a missing link to the lineage of music for the classical guitar that has often been overlooked. Ms. Pestana gave a lecture following her concert elaborating the reasons why this musical lineage has been obscured for so long and all the revelations she has made from her extensive research into the matter.
The festival came to its end with Freddie Bryant performing a program almost entirely of his own compositions that take heavily from Brazilian masters such Antonio Carlos Jobim, Joao Gilberto, and Luis Bonfa, and featured staples of the Brazilian repertoires Manha de Carnaval by Bonfa and A Felicidade by Jobim to open and close the evening, respectively.
The Miami International GuitART Festival continues to be a beacon for the guitar and all of its enthusiasts to come together to celebrate the wonders of the instrument in its different genre permutations. The guest artists came together to give yet another rousingly successful week of music that offers much to the Miami cultural scene.
Cristian Perez
