MICHAEL KUDIRKA - Guitar and Lute

With descriptions like "...the excellent guitarist in [Hans Werner] Henze’s unsettled score” from Mark Swed of the Los Angeles Time and “great variety and wealth of timbres, breathing, nuances, intensities, tempo changes, all sustained by an impeccable technique” from Enrique Velasco del Valle of the Diario de Xalapa (Mexico), Michael Kudirka is known as a guitarist with rare musical and interpretive gifts. Numerous competition first prizes include the American String Teachers Association, the University of Southern California Concerto Competition, and the Portland International Guitar Competition. He has toured extensively in the United States, Mexico, Canada, Germany, China, and Japan, and has performed at such notable venues as the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco, the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, California, the Conservatorio de los Rosas in Morelia, Mexico, the Darmstadt Ferienkurs für Neue Musik in Darmstadt, Germany, and the Ono Guitar School in Osaka, Japan. An active chamber musician, Michael Kudirka has appeared with many dynamic ensembles including Music of Changes, Ensemble Green, the Formalist String Quartet, the Santa Cecilia Orchestra, the Cantori Domino Orchestra and Chorus, the Los Angeles Guitar Quartet, the USC Symphony Orchestra, and PARTCH.

Michael Kudirka studied guitar with William Kanengiser at the University of Southern California, Miroslav Tadic at CalArts, and both composition and improvisation with Dusan Bogdanovic at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. He has performed in masterclasses for many of the world's most brilliant guitarists including Sergio and Odair Assad, Roberto Aussel, Paul Galbraith, Pepe Romero, and David Russel.

A major activist for the creation of new music, Michael Kudirka has commissioned and premiered dozens of new works for the guitar including Song of Ashes by Naomi Sekiya, “May the Bridges I Burn Light My Way…” by Jeffrey Holmes, 13 Ways of Looking at 12 Strings by Bryan Johanson, and 5 Intermezzi by Veronika Krausas. An active arranger, Michael has transcribed and performed Jean-Philippe Rameau's Pieces de Clavecin (1724) for guitar duo, Johann Sebastian Bach’s “Well-Tempered Clavier” for guitar quartet, and Frederick Chopin’s Nocturne nr. 1 op. 9 for flute and guitar, among others. He recently received a grant from the American Composer’s Forum to record the guitar works of Jeffrey Holmes.

Michael is currently the Instructor of Guitar at the Interlochen Center for the Arts in Interlochen, Michigan (USA). He directs the Guitar Program at both the Interlochen Arts Academy (boarding arts high school September-May) and the Interlochen Summer Arts Camp (June-August).