2017 Arkansas Guitar Festival

The Department of Music and the Guitar Program at the University of Arkansas will host the 2017 Arkansas Guitar Festival Tuesday, Oct. 24. The festival will include workshops and an evening concert. Professor Jake Hertzog organized the event and will host the guest artists on behalf of the Department. This year's guests are performer and luthier Bayard Blain and electric and accoustic guitarist Blake Goodwin.

The main event is an evening concert at 7:30 p.m. in the Stella Boyle Smith Concert Hall (poster included). The concert will include Jake Hertzog, Blake Goodwin, and the Bayard Trio: Bayard Blane, Kelly Mulholland, and John Davies. Various selections will be included in the concert ranging from jazz to rock to traditional folk. 

As part of the festival, Bayard Blain will give a workshop of guitar setup and repair. The workshop will be at 3 p.m. At 4 p.m., Blake Goodwin will give a clinic for solo guitar. Both workshops will take place in the Stella Boyle Smith Concert Hall.

All events for the festival are free and open to the public.

Artist Biographies

Bayard Blain

As a child, I was never without a pocket knife and a piece of wood. In 2003, I decided I wanted to build a guitar and enrolled in the Summit School of Guitar Building and Repair in Qualicum, BC. The school enlightened me to the tools I needed and the basic process of lutherie. After school, my grandfather gifted me his woodworking machinery and a collection of various antique hand tools. Treasures that date back 3 or 4 generations in my family, some of which I still use. I had built fifty or so flat top instruments when a friend commisioned a mandolin. Carving has since become one of my joys — mandolins, mandolas, archtop guitars, bouzoukis, octave mandolins, and more. The nature of the buisness has compelled me to become an obsessive wood collector. I have invested in my own resaw and large milling capabilities, hand selecting every piece of my instruments from the board up. I use a variety of exotic and native species for different purposes. I truly love my work - my friends and clients tell me it shows. Every piece I envision is unique and different. Being a professional player, I know how a quality instrument should look, feel, and sound. I most enjoy building for specific people. Knowing one's particular style, form, and musicianship enables me to create exceptional custom instruments.

Blake Goodwin

Kevin (Blake) Goodwin is a modern electric and acoustic percussive fingerstyle guitar player from Conway, Arkansas (USA). He is the 2015 Canadian Fingerstyle Guitar champion, an international acoustic guitar competition held annually in Kingston, Ontario. He is also the winner of the 2017 (Electric) and 2016 (Acoustic) Guitar Wars Competition in San Antonio (Texas), the longest running guitar competition in America. He is the founder of FretMonkey Records, a popular independent guitar record label operated by 23 guitar players spanning 10 countries whose mission is to create career-changing opportunities for musicians across the globe. In addition, he is a music videographer, audio engineer, a producer at FretMonkey Records studio, and an active member of the Grammys. His electric and acoustic music is a blend of haunting jazz, Djent metal, and rock melodies coupled with traditional percussive fingerstyle guitar techniques. He has been described as the "21st Century Acoustic Man" possessing "outrageous guitar skills."

Jake Hertzog

Jake Hertzog is a critically acclaimed guitarist, composer and educator whose career to-date has spanned nine albums as bandleader across jazz, rock and classical new music styles. He has toured throughout the U.S., Europe, Latin America, the Middle East and India and performed and recorded with a diverse cadre of artists including Randy Brecker, Ivan Neville, Mike Clarke, Blondie Chaplin, Anton Fig, Corey Glover, Barry Altschul, Dave Leibman, Ingrid Jensen and many others.

Hertzog's many projects have included the Jake Hertzog Trio with Harvie S and Victor Jones — a jazz/rock group that has released five albums to wide acclaim and radio success and headlined venues such as The Blue Note in New York and Salo Jazz Festival in Finland. Hertzog's rock group The Young Presidents has been featured on Vh1 and MTV as well as radio stations around the world. He also produced a documentary film about the making of their album "Coalition," in collaboration with Grammy-winning producer Rob Fraboni (Rolling Stones, The Band).

Most recently, Hertzog released "Well Lit Shadow" (2016), a classical suite for solo electric guitar celebrating themes and images in particle physics. Another of his classical projects, "Stringscapes" for two guitars, was partially premiered in New York in 2016 and is set for recording later this year co-featuring guitarist Yishai Fischer.

For three years, Hertzog was musical director and lead guitarist for Nickelodeon's The Naked Brothers Band stars, Nat and Alex Wolff. They headlined two major national tours and performed on national television shows including Good Morning America, The View, Nickelodeon's Kids Choice Awards and The Today Show.

As an educator, Hertzog has been an artist-in-residence and guest clinician in colleges and conservatories in the U.S., Europe and India. He created the instructional series "Hey Jazz Guy" for Guitar Player magazine and contributed over 30 articles to the publication.

Hertzog is a grand prize winner of the Montreux Jazz Guitar Competition, holds a performance degree from Berklee College of Music and a master's degree from The Manhattan School of Music in New York.