Artist Bios 2018-2019
Tengyue Zhang
TY Zhang is the First Prize winner of the 2017 Guitar Foundation of America (GFA) International Concert Artist Competition, known as the most prestigious guitar contest in the world. He also won the GFA Senior Division in 2010. Zhang will perform a 2018–19 GFA concert tour of over 50 cities in North America, including his recital debut in Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall, with additional dates in Europe, South America and Asia.
TY Zhang has received several First Prizes including the Forum Gitarre Wien International Youth Competition, the 2015 Changsha International Competition which pre- sented him on tour throughout China, the 2017 Schadt String Competition, and the 2017 Frauchi Competition in Moscow which will present him in recital/concerto tours in Russia.
Zhang studied in China at the Music School of the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing with Chen Zhi, and has been a student of Sharon Isbin at The Juilliard School since 2012, where he received his BM and MM.
Stephen Bennett
Stephen Bennett is an American acoustic guitarist. Aside from his work on the six-string guitar, Bennett is also one of the world's premiere performers on the harp guitar. Born in Oregon, Bennett grew up in New York and has lived in Virginia for the better part of the last three decades. Since his 1987 first-place win at the National Flatpicking Championship in Win eld , Kansas (The Walnut Valley Festival), he has become known as a versatile fingerstyle and flatpicking guitarist who consistently garners critical praise and audience enthusiasm for his recordings and live performances..
Aside from his work on the six-string guitar, Bennett is also one of the world's premiere performers on the harp guitar, an instru- ment he indirectly inherited from his great-grandfather. As a composer and arranger, he has created an enduring repertoire and a signi cant body of recorded work for this instrument.
The image of Bennett embracing his harp guitar is the one that tends to linger. The fact that Bennett is only too happy to champion the cause of the harp guitar may inadvertently obscure his abilities on the six-string instrument. In what is becoming known as the Golden Age of Guitar Luthiery, it's easy to overlook the fact that this is also the Golden Age of Guitar Playing. With six strings or more, as one of the most original and prolific composers and arrangers for the guitar on the current scene, Bennett is clearly a part of the latter heritage.
Zoran Dukić
Born in Zagreb in 1969, the guitarist Zoran Dukić has a busy schedule in performing, teaching, recording and publishing. He is a professor at the music academies in Barcelona and The Hague and has himself studied with Darko Petrinjak and Hubert Käppel. Between 1990 and 1997, he won an astonishing number of competitions, including both Andrés Segovia competitions in Granada and in Palma de Mallorca, as well as competitions dedicated to Fernando Sor, Manuel Ponce, Manuel de Falla, and Francisco Tárrega among many others. This, in addition to his unique expressiveness and poetry on the guitar, launched his worldwide career, bringing him unrivaled distinction among contemporary guitarists.