International Guitar Night celebrates its 20th anniversary

Back by popular demand, the Whitefish Theatre Company presents International Guitar Night, an ensemble made up of four of the best and most innovative acoustic guitarists in the world. International Guitar Night will play one night only on Wednesday, Feb. 12, at 7:30 p.m. at the O’Shaughnessy Center in Whitefish.

Brian Gore founded International Guitar Night in 1995 as a forum for the world’s finest guitarists to play their latest original songs and share musical ideas and talent with their peers. International Guitar Night has become the world’s premier touring guitar festival, bringing together the most interesting and original acoustic guitarists to exchange musical ideas in a public concert setting.

In 2020, International Guitar Night celebrates an incredible 20 years of U.S. touring with its most eclectic lineup yet. Four guitar luminaries, including Mike Dawes, Cenk Erdogan, Olli Soikkeli, and Jim Kimo West, promise a special evening with solos, duets, and dynamic quartets that highlight the dexterity and diversity within the world of acoustic guitar.

Mike Dawes, a two-hand contemporary guitarist from England, is known for composing, arranging and performing multiple parts simultaneously on one instrument using unique extended and micro-techniques. He is hailed as one of the world’s finest and most creative modern fingerstyle guitar performers. Dawes has amassed around 80 million music video views online and was voted the Best Acoustic Guitarist in the World by Music Radar & Total Guitar Magazine in a December 2017 readers’ poll. Dawes is also lead guitar player for Justin Hayward of the Moody Blues featuring heavily on multiple DVD and PBS releases.

Cenk Erdogan, a maestro on the fretless guitar from Istanbul, Turkey, founded the Cenk Erdogan Trio and has played in jazz and other festivals across the globe including the Istanbul Jazz Festival, Akbank Jazz Festival, Zaltsburg Music Fest, Bayreuth Young Artists Fest and Bonn Summer Fest. Erdo an has recorded several solo albums in the past decade, in addition to albums with the Cenk Erdogan Trio and others. He works as a producer, composer and arranger for television and has made the first educational website for fretless guitar playing.

Olli Soikkeli, an electrifying jazz virtuoso from Finland, started playing guitar at the age of 12. Early on, he was introduced to the music of the great Django Reinhardt and gypsy jazz has been Olli’s main focus ever since. Soikkeli moved to New York City in 2014, resulting in invitations to play at legendary venues such as Birdland Jazz Club, Blue Note and Lincoln Center. The Wall Street Journal called him “a riveting Finnish guitarist who combines astonishing dexterity and speed with pure soul in a way that places him among the worthiest current day successors of the great Django.”

Lastly, Jim “Kimo” West is based in Hana, Maui, where he discovered the sound of “ki ho’alu” or Hawaiian “slack key” guitar. This warm and engaging fingerpicked guitar style has its roots in 1840s Hawaii when Mexican vaqueros first brought guitars to the Big Island of Hawaii. Upon mastering this acoustic guitar style, West became the longtime guitarist for musical comedy artist, “Weird Al” Yankovic. For his work with “Weird Al,” he earned four Grammys and a Billboard No. 1 CD debut for 2015’s “Mandatory Fun.” West is a 2008 winner of the Hawaii Music Awards, four-time Na Hoku Hanohano nominee, and a two-time winner of the LA Treasures Award for his efforts in keeping this important acoustic guitar tradition alive.

Tickets are $30 for adults and $20 for students with reserved seating. Tickets can be purchased at the box office, 1 Central Ave., Whitefish, or by calling 862-5371. Box office hours are from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Monday through Friday and one hour before a performance. Tickets can also be purchased online at www.whitefishtheatreco.org.