IGS History

This page existed on the site while the seminars were still remembered as recent. Its opening line was: "This page commemorates the history of International Guitar Seminars: what it was all about and who was involved. Below are excerpts from past brochures. Enjoy." It is preserved here more or less as written, because a self-authored retrospective is a better historical record than anything reconstructed afterwards.

From the brochures

We started IGS to create a "safe" place where beginners as well as advanced players can learn from each other, expand their musicianship, and take musical chances. Through our travels we have met guitarists from all over the world who are looking for a sense of direction and a fresh input of ideas and new repertoire.

Now in the planning stages of our seventh year, we have realized our dream, creating along the way an enthusiastic community of alumni joining us on the lifelong adventure of music making. Several of our students are pursuing careers in music and have gone on to become performers and teachers. Many IGS alumni have taken their music in new directions, are playing with other musicians on a regular basis, and are simply enjoying their playing more.

Student jam sessions are popping up more and more often at our Guitar Forum and reports of both staff and student reunions are coming in from all corners of the world. It seems that no matter where we travel to, there are at least a few familiar faces in the audience from IGS. We're pleased with the way the community has grown and taken on a life of its own. Thanks to our incredible staff and the enthusiasm of our students, we have succeeded in creating one of the premiere guitar workshops in the world.

— Woody Mann, Bob Brozman, Trevor Laurence

The teachers

The full list of players who taught across the seminar's run, as the history page recorded it: Bob Brozman, Woody Mann, Jorma Kaukonen, John Cephas, John Renbourn, Happy Traum, Martin Simpson, Pat Donahue, Robert Tilling, Mike Dowling, Tony Marcus, Orville Johnson, Trevor Laurence, Tim Sparks, Dave Mullany, Jennifer Scott, Rene Worst, Mary Flower, Lasse Johansson, Steve James and Banning Eyre.

2003 IGS faculty

Robert Tilling, Orville Johnson, Happy Traum, John Renbourn, Bob Brozman, Mike Dowling, Woody Mann, John Cephas, Piper Heisig, Bob Wolstien.

2004 IGS faculty

Dave Mullany, Steve James, Rene Worst, Ray Piper, Robert Tilling, Mike Dowling, Woody Mann, Tim Sparks, John Renbourn, Mary Flower, Trevor Laurence, Bob Brozman, Orville Johnson, Jennifer Scott.

The venues, year by year

• 1999 — Columbia University, New York City (June); University of California, Santa Cruz (August). Core faculty Woody Mann, Bob Brozman, Martin Simpson, John Cephas.
• 2000 — Columbia University (17–23 June); UC Santa Cruz (19–25 August).
• 2001 — San Rafael, California, in addition to the New York session.
• 2002 — New York and West Coast sessions.
• 2003 — New York and Seattle; that year's scholarship fund was supported by instrument donations from two guitar makers.
• 2004 — Seattle University, Washington, 7–13 August: the sixth annual workshop, and the largest published faculty roster.
• 2005 — Columbia University, 18–24 June. This is the last session announced on the site.

Alumni letters

The history page carried a long run of letters from students, several of which are reproduced on the testimonials page. Their tone is remarkably uniform across six years and three states: gratitude for the access to the faculty, relief at the absence of competition, and a recurring difficulty in describing the week to people who had not been.

Afterwards

The annual seminars wound down after the middle of the decade. A shorter programme trading as "Acoustic Sessions" ran workshops in 2007 and 2008; the message board carried the alumni community for several years after that, and is described on the forum page. The site was rebuilt once more around a photo gallery and the board before going quiet altogether.

Bob Brozman died in 2013 and Woody Mann in January 2022 — the latter remembered at length by Acoustic Guitar, which quotes Happy Traum on teaching alongside him at these seminars. With both founders gone, what remains of IGS is this archive, a great many private recordings made on the cassette machines the FAQ told everyone to bring, and — going by the letters — a fair amount of playing that would not otherwise have happened.