For over a decade, the Vancouver Classic Guitar Society (VCGS) has been at the heart of Vancouver’s classical guitar scene, championing music education and community engagement. The society has grown steadily since its inception, organizing a prestigious five-concert international artist series and numerous local events. With a commitment to fostering a love for music, the VCGS continues to enrich Vancouver’s cultural landscape through performances, workshops, and educational initiatives.
Describe your charity/non-profit/volunteer work in a few sentences.
Our flagship project is a 5 concert international artists series which takes place at the Pyatt Hall (VSO School of Music) and the Koerner Hall (Vancouver Academy of Music). The concert series focuses on promoting classical guitar and music in general. Equally important, we organize smaller local concerts, 2 summer festivals and many numerous social and educational events such as masterclasses, socials, lectures, workshops, open mics, open stages and our amateur ensemble. We also help promote events by other organizers that feature the guitar.
What problem does it aim to solve?
We grow an appreciation for music, education and community building in our culture.
When did you start/join it?
I joined the VCGS in 2012 when I first moved to Vancouver. I became the chair around 2017 if I remember correctly.
What made you want to get involved?
I was supported in my youth by a classical guitar society in Calgary, where I am from. When I moved to Vancouver I saw the wonderful people and the positive work being done by this organization and wanted to be a part of that energy.
What was the situation like when you started?
It was generally the same as it is now in terms of what we do, our values and what we strive to achieve in our community.
How has it changed since?
We have definitely seen slow but steady growth. Covid slowed things down a bit, but even though Covid, we continued to hold events online. Now we have a larger audience, a larger group of volunteers and hold more events. The biggest change would be the creation of our two summer festivals. One held locally in Vancouver and the other held in Kelowna.
What more needs to be done?
We usually sell out one or two shows a year but most of our concerts still have room for more audience, especially since we’ve started doing concerts at the larger Koerner Hall. I think increasing our membership numbers would be really nice as well. In the long term, it would be nice to have some coordination with our primary and secondary schools about coordinating the guitar as a regular part of their educational system. A guitar society in Austin Texas has done that with huge success. Guitar is a popular and very affordable instrument, so it’s a really logical route to take in promoting music education. Also, our charity is currently completely volunteer-run. It would be really nice to have enough financial support to afford a full (or even part-time) employee to manage things and help protect the future growth of our organization and efforts.
How can our readers help?
The best thing is to take a moment and visit www.vancouverguitar.org and see what upcoming events we are hosting. Right there on our home page you can see a link to our newsletter. Of course, we are always welcoming new members, volunteers and donors!
Where can we follow you?
PAY IT FORWARD: What is an awesome local charity that you love?
There are lots of amazing groups out there! We do a lot of collaborations with the West End Seniors Network. It would also be great to highlight some other music organizations in town like Muzewest or Vetta Chamber Music.
