Members of the Infamous P-Town Ramblers played the last four songs at the end of All Styles Night of Guitar Fest. P-Town Ramblers played a mixture of bluegrass, country and folk songs. 
Regina Pergola/The Lion’s Roar

All Styles Night of the 18th annual Guitar Fest saw faculty members and students perform a variety of music genres. 

“This concert went a little bit longer,” said Patrick Kerber, instructor of guitar and festival coordinator. “Usually, I keep all the concerts at an hour. Tonight, I had so many people who wanted to play”

Guitar Fest is spread out over a month with performances from Mar. 14 to 28, and then a final  ensemble  on Apr. 25. Kerber believes that this structure of the festival allows the opportunity for guest artists to visit campus in order to perform. 

“It’s a structure of there’s always one guest artist, someone from out of town,” said Kerber. “Someone with some sort of stature in the performance community. Typically, someone who has a university position but not always. Just to bring an outside influence for the community and the students to see. Then, I ask a faculty member to do a faculty recital. It’s a template.”

The Southeastern Guitar Ensemble is the last performance of Guitar Fest. 

“The guitar ensemble always closes out,” said Kerber. “Sometimes the All Styles is at the end depending on the schedule. So, this time we had to play it now, and the ensemble will close us out in a couple weeks. Because their concert that they play every semester anyway is going to be a part of it.”

Performers had a chance to play whatever they wanted to at All Styles Night. A careful planning of the different events and the forecast all played a part in how the event would be structured. 

“This night has become successful,” said Kerber. “We used to do it outside, but we couldn’t trust the weather. It’s just a really neat night. People get to expand and play things other than what typically gets heard in the recital hall.”

The structure of spreading performances out for Guitar Fest was determined by the needs of the performers playing and the audience members’ availability.

“Usually when people do festivals, they clump them together,” said Kerber. “Put it Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, that kind of thing, and I was doing that. Then I had a lot of people say, they were polite about it, ‘I really can’t take off three nights a week.’ So, I decided to spread it out and do it every other week.”

However, Kerber expressed his idea of reverting back to the original format in the future.

“It’s getting to the point where I think I’m going to try it next year, clumping them all together,” said Kerber. “Here at Southeastern we have this problem of success in that our music school is so successful, we have so many performances that it’s getting difficult to bring audiences in. For instance, tonight before we played, there was a graduate trumpet recital. So, it’s not uncommon to have two performances a night.”

Faculty members that played included Dr. Joseph Burns, Dr. William Robison as well as Instruction Librarian Ben Bell. Joseph Burns also performed a song with his wife Tammy Burns. Students such as Dominique Roubique performed at Guitar Fest. This is the second year that Roubique has played in Guitar Fest, and she performed in a group of three. She described the benefits and challenges that came with playing during the festival.

“Really, just working with the other people,” said Roubique, a  sophomore music major with a concentration in guitar. “They’re great.  I wish I could have done something by myself, but we got together, started practicing.”

The Guitar Ensemble will play on Apr. 25 at 7:30 p.m. in Pottle Auditorium. This will be the final performance of this year’s Guitar Fest.

Member of Impaired Faculties and communication professor Dr. Joseph Burns and his wife Tammy Burns sang a duet at All Styles Night of Guitar Fest. Their two children attended the performance as well.
Regina Pergola/The Lion’s Roar 

Students performed together at the All Styles Night of Guitar Fest, which was the last performance of Guitar Fest in March. The next performance will be the Southeastern Guitar Ensemble in April. Dominique Roubique, a music major with a concentration in guitar, center, expressed that she would be interested in performing by herself as well as in a group  in future Guitar Fests. She has been performing in Guitar Fest for two years.  Regina Pergola/The Lion’s Roar