What a privilege it was to be involved in this years Classical Guitar Retreat, a massive thank you to Matthew McAllister for including me. It was hosted at its new venue in St Andrews, The Laidlaw Music Centre. A brilliant week/weekend with lots of superb players, concerts, students, luthiers, guitars and a brilliant modern concert hall.
If you have been following the posts/YouTube videos about the festival you will be aware that I built a guitar for the competition, which a player at the festival would win. That player was Eugen Treichel, having made it through the pre rounds that were hosted on The Gallery of Guitar YouTube channels (linked below). Eugen got invited to the finals, were he went in a head to head with 5 other talented players, a well contested final resulted in the unanimous decision from the judges that Eugen was the deserving winner.
As the winner of the competition, Eugen got a whole host of prizes. Most importantly my guitar, obviously. A beautiful carbon guitar case from 'Alba Guitar Beads', a string package from 'Augestine Strings' + more!
Here is his initial thoughts on the guitar:
"I really enjoy playing it, it's very well balanced. The basses are powerful but precise at the same time and it can sing beautifully in the upper registers. I'm super curious to hear how it will sound as it develops"
Eugens bio is impressive, he started his studies at the age of 12 at the Friedrichshafen Music school in Southern Germany. He received a scholarship from the 'German Academic Scholarship Foundation' and studied at the Folkwang University of the Arts, in Essen. He also studied at the Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance in London and has an impressive collection of teachers/professors over his studies, including Tomasz Zawierucha, David Russel, Thomas Müller-Pering and more. His studies continue at the Music Academy in Lucerne, where he is under the tutelage of Andreas von Wangenheim, pursuing his second masters degree.
As well as extensive studies he has won various awards/competitions. Including first prizes at the NRW Guitar Prize "Stephen Goss", and the Twents Guitar Festival. He was awarded the Artist Promotion Prize in Friedrichshafen and in 2019 he received the "Ingrid Girardet Prize for the Promotion of Young Talent" as part of the Folkwang Prize. He can now add First prize in the 'Classical Guitar Retreat 2024' festival competition to this list.
Having already played in various concert halls across different countries, I believe Eugen will have a promising career ahead of him. Now armed with one of my guitars to help him along his way, definitely one to keep an eye on!
Here is the live feed from the Competition Final, Skip to 3 hour mark for Eugens performance: (I also make a brief appearance at the end for the prize giving)
Here is a bunch of other links: His submission for the preliminary round of the competition, skip to 40.30: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ODPh0VRYw9c The video of the guitar/Matthew McAllister trying it out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0pidLLx_Es Eugens Links: https://eugentreichel.com/ https://www.instagram.com/eugen_treichel/ https://www.youtube.com/@EugenTreichel Classical Guitar Retreat/Gallery of Guitar Links: https://www.youtube.com/@galleryofguitar https://cgretreat.com/ Other Links: https://albaguitarbeads.com/ https://augustinestrings.com/
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