Old Town Center for the Arts ~ Cottonwood, AZ

The Old Town Center for the Arts ~ Cottonwood, AZ

Guitars and Beyond

William Eaton, Anthony Mazzella,
and Fitzhugh Jenkins

Saturday, March 24, 7:30 pm

$15 advance $18 door, $20 priority

Guitars & Beyond Concert Opens Spring Planting Festival

Visionary guitarists William Eaton, Anthony Mazzella, and Fitzhugh Jenkins will present Guitars and Beyond at Old Town Center for the Arts, on Saturday, March 24th at 7:30 pm. The concert will feature music for acoustic, electric, and synthesizer guitars, as well as their one-of-a-kind 18 string electric harp guitars. You can also expect a few surprises for this one night only appearance.

This concert is a special event to kick-off the 4th Annual Spring Planting Festival and a week of activities, workshops, speakers and concerts throughout the Verde Valley and Sedona. Richard Sidy, President of Gardens for Humanity, and Ruth Hartung, Vice President, will introduce the event at Old Town Center for the Arts, and outline the week’s schedule of activities.

Eaton, Mazzella and Jenkins began a journey together back in 2007, when acclaimed instrument maker William Eaton designed the first 18 string electric harp guitar and put a luthier team together to make three of the newly designed instruments. From that effort a musical collaboration was initiated and the Electric Harp Guitar Group (EHGG) was born. Since that time the group has performed concerts and recorded their first album, the self titled Electric Harp Guitar Group at Wisdom Tree Studios in Sedona. The CD has received many accolades, including being voted in 2010 as one of the Top 25 Essential CD’s by Echoes, an internationally syndicated radio program.

Each musician brings diverse talent and creative technique to EHGG. Anthony Mazzella is recognized as one of the most innovative and technically proficient guitar players in the world, and was voted as “one of the top ten guitarists in the U.S.” by Guitar One magazine. Fitzhugh Jenkins has become renowned for his versatility on acoustic, classical, and bass guitars and his performing and recording career has taken him around the U.S., Europe, India, Canada, and Hawaii. William Eaton is acknowledged as one of the world’s great designers and builders of unique guitars and multi-stringed instruments. He is a four time GRAMMY nominee and travels to Spain and Russia this spring for scheduled tours with R. Carlos Nakai and Will Clipman.

A special tribute song, entitled Beyond the Trees will be performed to honor the thousand’s year old ritual of Spring Planting. Indigenous peoples from all over the planet have recognized this cycle in music and dance, including music for shaman’s bow and the hunter’s singing bow the early relative to all stringed instruments, and Eaton’s inspiration for designing the electric harp guitar that uses the bow shape as its’ central motif.

The Electric Harp Guitar Group is a first, for Verde Valley, and the world. Musician – luthier, William Eaton designed these instruments to be played as an ensemble. Each harp guitar has 18 strings, and when all three are played together the instruments simultaneously resonate in harmony, rhythmic syncopation, and melodic counterpoint. The low tones, created by the longer neck scale lengths, bring a timbre and sound quality that is unique to these instruments. The Electric Harp Guitar Group’s music could be described as an inner space - sonic voyage, but the group goes beyond ambient trans-groove boundaries, exploring pop, funk, folk and classical themes