Classical guitar festival now running in Cluj-Napoca, Romania

The Transilvania International Guitar Festival is currently on in Cluj-Napoca. The classical guitar festival started Monday (August 6 ) and will run until this Saturday (August 11 ). There will be recitals aplenty and competitions for aspiring guitarists from Romania and beyond.

It's the festival's tenth year and the program includes competitions for different age groups, masterclasses, lectures and evening recitals, in many cases given by prize winners from previous years. 2010 laureate Eduard Leata, from Romania, gave the festival's opening recital yesterday evening. Coming up this evening are two recitals, the first by a Romanian duo and the second by another duo from the Ukraine; all four musicians are previous competition winners. Later in the week festival goers can look forward to concerts by the Transilvanian Guitarists, Mircea Gogoncea (Romania) and Gabor Podhorszky (Hungary). A duo featuring Sebastian Montes of Chile and Katrin Klingeberg from Germany will close the festival on Saturday evening. Throughout the festival a guitar exhibition featuring instruments made by invited luthiers is running and before the final recital, participants will give a gala performance. Entrance to all events is free and the majority of the competitions and recitals are in the Gheorghe Dima Music Academy. Find out more on the festival website. Ioana Toader, ioana.toader@romania-insider.com (photo source: sxc.hu)