2008 Accent on Music Guitar Seminar
Session I: July 14 - 21, 2008 - Portland, Oregon

2008 Seminar Session I Wrap Up

View Photo Gallery from the 2008 Seminar

Session 1 of the Accent On Music 2008 Guitar Seminar at Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Oregon, was great fun, with lots of energy and great music.

Second-time instructor Pete Huttlinger wowed the students and the Saturday evening concert audience with his prolific licks and stories of being on the road as John Denver’s guitarist. Mary Flower impressed the attendees with her fabulous blues fingerpicking and lap slide work, along with her great vocals.

Greta Pedersen provided much needed advice on performance anxiety, and added sterling vocals at the Saturday evening concert on “Foggy Dew” and “Heard It Through the Grapevine”.  Mark Hanson led the students through many of his world-class solo guitar arrangements, including “Water Is Wide” (you can see Mark play it on YouTube) and Stevie Wonder’s “Isn’t She Lovely.”

Pete and Mark carried the Saturday evening concert, as Mary had to leave Saturday morning for gigs in Europe. With considerable vocal help from Greta, Mark and Pete cranked it up with great solos and a powerful trio set at the end. The encore was the Austrian tune "Auf Wiedersehen", a haunting multi-language goodnight song that Greta and Mark learned in Vienna when they lived there years ago, and taught to Pete on the spot! It provided a sterling ending to an enjoyable evening.

Our Tuesday evening entertainer was fingerpicking champion Doug Smith (Mark's duo partner, and partner of Mark and Terry Robb in the Acoustic Guitar Summit. Saturday morning we had another Portland area national fingerpicking champ, John Standefer come over to wow the crowd. Both did magnificently.

The seminar week was great by unanimous acclaim, and the Lewis & Clark College setting in Portland, Oregon, was as beautiful as ever. People from around the world marvel at Portland’s superb summer weather: low humidity and no insects! Consider coming next year!