OUR HISTORY: HOW TGSO BEGAN

In 2004, Jeff McKee, president of the Tucson Guitar Society, started an ensemble consisting of six to eight members, of varying experience and skill, who enjoyed playing together. Requirements to join were simple: membership in the Guitar Society and the ability to read music. In 2009, Ian Stuart, the new chairman of the Guitar Society, made Gabriel Navia the orchestra’s first conductor and artistic director. The ensemble, now called the Tucson Guitar Society Orchestra (TGSO), added a few members, began rehearsing a more challenging repertoire and played its first performance at Holsclaw Hall in December 2010. Guest soprano soloist was Valquiria Pomme who sang the aria Cantilena from Villa-Lobos’ Bachianas Brasileiras No. 5. When Gabriel Navia returned to Brazil in the summer of 2013, José Luis Puerta, an original member of the orchestra and a doctoral candidate at the University of Arizona, was asked to take over as conductor and artistic director. The TGSO performed its Winter Concert, with soloists Juan Merello, theorbo, and Kaitlyn Miller, violin, at Grace St. Paul’s Church in December 2013. The orchestra’s first performance outside of Tucson was at the Guitar Foundation of America (GFA) regional conference at the Musical Instrument Museum in Scottsdale, Arizona, in March of 2014. They also participated in the Arizona Ensemble Festival at Glendale Community College as part of an 85-player guitar ensemble! In October 2014, ten representatives of the TGSO performed Shingo Fujii's Concierto de los Angeles, with Bill Kanengiser as soloist, as part of an all-Arizona Guitar Orchestra which toured Tucson, Tempe and Flagstaff.

The Tucson Guitar Society recently began to commission music for guitar ensemble. Our first piece “Once We Moved Like the Wind” was written by Brad Richter, and it honors the life of Geronimo. This composition was premiered by the Arizona Guitar Orchestra, an ensemble formed of players from the Tucson Guitar Society as well as from Phoenix and Flagstaff. This ad hoc orchestra played in all three participating cities, under the baton of Chuck Hulihan of Glendale Community College. Subsequently, our collaborating group commissioned Andrew York to write for us, and he created “By Chants” for guitar quartet and ensemble. The piece is based on a gaming song of the Havasupai Tribe of the Grand Canyon area. It premiered in spring of 2017 with the Los Angeles Guitar Quartet and the Arizona Guitar Orchestra. We have premiered a third new piece, this one by renowned Welsh composer Steven Goss, called “Minimal Effort.”  You can hear it below: it also references the Arizona desert with the silence of morning followed by the startling sounds of its wildlife as the day begins. In 2023, we engaged Olga Amelkina-Vera to write a guitar ensemble and voice piece, setting the words of poet Ofelia Zepeda, a member of the Tohono O’odham nation, to music. The piece premiered in April 2023 with mezzo Mack Wolz singing.

The orchestra is open to Guitar Society members: there is a $50/year fee to participate. Students play for free. For more information about the Tucson Guitar Society Orchestra contact José Luis Puerta at joseluispuertapr@gmail.com.

The TGSO is truly an exciting place to play ensemble music. If you would like to join, just give us a call!