GuitarFest 2025 Artists
Performers and clinicians include: Dr. Adam Kossler and John Kossler (Kossler Duo) • Dr. Michael McCallie and Alejandro Olson (Chattanooga Guitar) • Dr. Kami Rowan • Kenneth Kam • Dr. Douglas James • Anderson Page
Dr. Adam Kossler, Artistic Director
Adam Kossler is a top prizewinner in a number of national and international guitar competitions including the Boston Guitarfest, Columbus Guitar Symposium, East Carolina Guitar Competition, MANC Guitar Competition, Texas International Guitar Competition, and the Music Teacher National Association Competition. Kossler’s international performance career has taken him throughout the US, Canada, Central America and Asia. He has been a featured artist with numerous concert series including the John E. Marlow Guitar Series (Bethesda, MD), Isle Newell Concert Series (Appalachicola, FL), and the Seven Hills Guitar Series (Tallahassee, FL) among many others. In 2015, his Marlow Guitar Series performance was aired in its entirety on Classical WETA’s weekly program, “Front Row Washington”. Recently he performed at Carnegie Hall, premiering new works by Chilean composer Javier Farias.
In addition to his performance career, Kossler is also in demand as a teacher and clinician. Recent engagements include The Denver Guitar Summit (Denver, CO), Festival Internacional Suzuki (Guatemala City, Guatemala), University of Alaska Guitar Festival (Anchorage, AK) Rantucci Guitar Festival (Buffalo, NY), and in 2015 Kossler was the featured Artist in Residence for Utah Classical Guitar (Salt Lake City, UT).
In 2014, Kossler released his first solo recording, Guitar Recital. The album was received with enthusiasm by critics and audiences and was featured Tom Cole’s show, “The G String,” on WPFW 89.3 FM in Washington D.C. In 2015 Kossler released his second solo record. Ekloge, an album of 20th-century music, includes works by Joaquin Rodrigo, Manuel Maria Ponce and Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco, as well as his own new transcriptions of music by Jean Sibelius.
Adam Kossler began his musical studies with his father William Kossler. He went on to earn his BM degree at East Carolina University with Dr. Elliot Frank, his MM degree at Appalachian State University as a teaching assistant to Dr. Douglas James, and completed a DMA in Guitar Performance at Florida State University where he served as a teaching assistant to Bruce Holzman. Dr. Kossler currently directs the guitar program at Appalachian State University in Boone, North Carolina.
Kossler Duo: Dr. Adam Kossler and John Kossler
Brothers Adam and John Kossler have established themselves individually as soloists, chamber musicians and educators, and as the Kossler Duo have performed for concert series including the Utah Classical Guitar Series (SLC, Utah), Philadelphia Guitar Series (Philadelphia, PA), Triangle Guitar Series (Durham, NC) Auburn Guitar Society Concert Series (Auburn, AL), Aguado Guitar Series (Sterling, VA), Appalachian Guitarfest (Boone, NC), Mid Maryland Guitar Festival (Rockville, MD) and East Carolina Guitar Workshop (Greenville, NC). In 2019 the Kossler Duo released their first album titled Danse Macabre, a collection of their own new transcriptions for guitar duo. The recording debuted at #2 on Billboard’s “Traditional Classical” chart, and #7 on Billboard’s “Classical Albums” chart. All arrangements are published through Guitar Chamber Music Press. Kossler Duo performs exclusively with Augustine Strings.
Chattanooga Guitar Duo (Michael McCallie and Alejandro Olson)
Michael has performed at or served on the faculties of: The Florida Guitar Festival and Competition, the Troy University Guitar Festival and Competition, the GuitarSarasota Concert Series, the Columbus State University Guitar Symposium, and the Guitar Foundation of America. Additionally, he has performed across the United States in venues including the Cohen-Davison Theater at the Peabody Institute of Music at Johns Hopkins University and Sprague Memorial Hall at Yale University and has performed with both the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga and Chattanooga Symphony Orchestras.
Michael holds a Master’s of Music in Guitar Performance from Yale University where he was the recipient of a full-tuition scholarship and a Bachelor of Music from Stetson University. Additionally, he has recently completed the Doctor of Music degree at Florida State University, where he was a scholarship student of the world-renowned pedagogue, Bruce Holzman. Michael’s principal teachers include: Dr. Stephen Robinson, Kevin Gallagher, Benjamin Verdery and Bruce Holzman.
Michael is Director of Guitar Programs at The McCallie School in Chattanooga and has served on the faculties at Covenant College and Chattanooga State. Michael is the Executive Director of GuitarChattanooga, a guitar-driven non-profit organization based in Chattanooga, TN.
Alejandro Olson is a professional classical guitarist with a Master of Music degree from the Lamont School of Music at the University of Denver. He competes in international guitar competitions in multiple countries as well as national competitions in the United States. Alejandro has won 1st prizes at Le Domaine Forget International Guitar Competition, the Grossmont Community Concert Association Competition, the American Protege International Music Competition at Carnegie Hall, and the Denver Classical Guitar Competition.
As a performer, Alejandro has impressed audiences around the world in countries such as Italy, Norway, the United States, and Canada. When asked about his playing, audiences describe it as "simply amazing" as well as "vibrant and beautiful."
As a transcriber, Alejandro has created a variety of new works for the classical guitar. He debuts most of these transcriptions with his violin-guitar duo: the York Street Duo. The duo actively performs works by Tartini, Sarasate, Rachmaninov, and Piazzolla. Currently, plans to publish these transcriptions are in the works and due in the next
Dr. Kami Rowan
Dr. Rowan completed her DMA and MM degrees from Shenandoah Conservatory of Shenandoah University and studied with the renowned Aaron Shearer, at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts, where she received her BM. Kami received her NC-A Teaching Certificate from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and taught full-time for the Guilford County Public Schools for six years. She was part of the team that designed and put into operation the Weaver High School for Performing & Visual Arts, an options high school in Guilford County. During that time, Kami created and implemented a complete guitar curriculum for the high school level.
Dr. Rowan currently serves on the board of multiple non-profit organizations including The Eastern Music Festival, Piedmont Guitar Society, and United Arts Council of Greater Greensboro. Additionally, she has been a clinician, guest conductor, and adjudicator for numerous guitar festivals and competitions and is a published author and editor. Kami has been on the faculty of the Shearer Summer Institute and served as an initial member of the Aaron Shearer Foundation for 10 years. In 2015, Dr. Rowan began the Guitar Program at the prestigious Eastern Music Festival where she is currently director and teaches alongside Jason Vieaux as well as guest artists Julian Gray, Thomas Viloteau, Jiji Kim, Badi Assad, and Xavier Jara.
Dr. Rowan is the director of the Piedmont Guitar Orchestra, as well as the US Guitar Orchestra (USGO), which launched in Carnegie Hall followed by a tour of France in summer 2019. In 2022, the USGO performed in Merkin Hall and toured Spain. These two experiences included a total of 5 world premiere commissions written for the USGO. The USGO project is currently expanding to include recording commissioned works and touring NYC and Portugal in Summer 2025.
Kenneth Kam
As an active performer, Kenneth has been heard in China, Malaysia, Germany, Canada, Japan, Austria, Czech Republic and Mexico. In 2018, Omar Rojas wrote a solo guitar piece, “KAM(?)”, and a piece for guitar and percussion, “OME”, both dedicated to Kenneth. In 2019, Kenneth premiered “Quinquagenary Horizon” and "Variation of ambush from ten sides", written by Daniel Adams and Barry Wan for him respectively. In 2021, Kenneth won the Lute Scholarship for a full ride to the Lute Society of America’s 2021 Lute Festival. In 2022, Kenneth was invited to give a masterclass and two performances at the Eastern Kentucky University. In 2023 and 2024, Kenneth served on the jury panel of the Appalachian State University GuitarFest in Boone, North Carolina.
As a researcher, Kenneth has presented lectures at universities in U.S. and Canada, the 3rd Altamira Hong Kong International Guitar Symposium at Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts, Hong Kong International Guitar Forum, College Music Society and Guitar Foundation of America. His William Walton, Miguel Llobet and Malcolm Arnold research have been published by the Malcolm Arnold Society, Soundboard and Gendai Guitar, a classical guitar specialized monthly magazine in Japan since 1967.
As an educator, Kenneth’s students achieved outstanding accomplishments at music events and competitions such as the Long Island Guitar Festival National High School Competition, Southern Guitar Festival & Competition, Connecticut Guitar Competition, Appalachian State University GuitarFest Competition, Eastman Community Music School Guitar Competition, River Campus Concerto Competition at the University of Rochester and New York State School Music Association (NYSSMA) Solo Festival.
Kenneth performs with the Hong Kong Guitar Ensemble and he is a doctoral candidate at the Eastman School of Music specializing in guitar and historical plucked instruments, including the Renaissance lute, the theorbo and the Baroque guitar. Kenneth is the music director of the guitar ensemble and the orchestra at SUNY Brockport.
For more information, please visit kennethkam.wordpress.com.
Anderson Page
Jazz guitarist Anderson Page maintains an active schedule in the Southeast with a variety of jazz and rock ensembles. He has performed internationally at the Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland, Japan’s Muroran Jazz Cruise, and for jazz workshops in Friburg, Germany. Page worked in the cruise ship industry in the South Pacific, Mediterranean and Caribbean seas and also traveled with a nationally touring theatrical production. In recent years he has performed at Asheville’s Django Reinhardt Celebration and the Dizzy Gillespie Jazzfest in South Carolina, and has been a featured composer at the Jazz Composers Forum based in Asheville, NC. Page has performed private engagements for former President Bill Clinton and poet Maya Angelou, and has performed with jazz artists such as Phil Woods, Jamey Aebersold, Tony Monaco, Matt Wilson, and many others. He has worked as a session player on numerous recordings, and has a released a recording of gypsy waltzes entitled “Souvenir de Django” with the trio Musette Guitars. Page has a Masters degree in Jazz Studies from the University of Tennessee and a Bachelor’s degree in Music Performance from University of North Carolina-Wilmington. He has studied privately with renowned jazz educators Jerry Coker and Donald Brown and with guitarists Mark Boling, Bob Russell, and Robert Nathanson. Anderson Page currently is on the music faculty at Appalachian State University where, in addition to Applied Jazz Guitar, he also teaches History of Rock Music, Jazz in American Society, and Jazz/Pop Theory.
Douglas James
Douglas James has performed as a classical guitarist throughout the United States and Europe for over 40 years. He has been a featured recitalist for such notable venues as the Guitar Foundation of America annual convention, Guitar-Festival Iserlohn, Stetson International Guitar Workshop, Oberlin Conservatory, New York's Carnegie and Merkin Halls, and many more. He has won the top prize in the Arturo Toscanini Solo Guitar Competition (Italy), and twice has been awarded a National Endowment for the Arts Solo Recitalist Fellowship. James often features authentic 19th century instruments in his performances of the Classical and Romantic literature, and is one half of the Rucco-James Duo, featuring 19th c. period guitars with the Italian guitarist Pasquale Rucco.
James has recorded three critically acclaimed CD's for the Cala Vista label. The first, Italian Romantic Music of the Early 19th century, featuring 19th century solo guitar music on period guitars, was followed by two in duo with Pasquale Rucco, Early Romantic Music for Two Guitars, and A Night at the Opera. Gitarr och Luta (Sweden) notes that "Douglas James' playing on the record is for my taste totally splendid. His enthusiasm to explore the early guitar repertoire is obvious, and he has an ability to use the old instruments to their full capacity, with all of their timbral possibilities. He plays intensely and sensitively with flow, ease and elegance." Classical Guitar (England) states, "Douglas James clearly has a great deal of sympathy for this repertoire and a carefully worked out approach to its interpretation ... everything is animated by concern for the life of the music on its own terms and in its own time. This is a welcome addition to the choice of 19th century repertoire played on genuine instruments of the time."
In addition to his work as a classical guitarist, James has in recent years expanded his musical horizons to return to his earliest roots playing electric guitar in various contemporary styles, and to playing Baroque music on the theorbo. (For him there’s a strong connection in the improvisational playing of contemporary electric guitar, and the improvisation involved in realizing continuo in Baroque music.) James plays theorbo with Harmonia Baroque and Corde Cantanti, and is the electric guitarist for the Junaluska Gospel Choir, the Harrows, and the Extraordinaires.
Douglas James holds the Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the University of Arizona where he studied with Thomas Patterson. Dr. James is a past member of the Advisory Board and Board of Trustees of the Guitar Foundation of America. He was Professor of Guitar at the Hayes School of Music at Appalachian State University for 27 years before retiring in 2022.
You can view more about Douglas James at his professional web site www.douglasjamesguitar.com