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News	The Wisconsin Conservatory of Music will celebrate its centennial in 1999. All past alumni, attendees, and faculty are encouraged to contact the Conservatory at (414) 276-5760. Nickel Creek, the bluegrass band featuring teenage instrumental wizards Chris Thile (mandolin), Sean Watkins (guitar), and Sara Watkins (fiddle), has signed with Sugar Hill Records. Texas songwriter Guy Clark was awarded the ASCAP Foundation Lifetime Achievement Award in a ceremony at Nashville's Opryland Hotel on September 21.
Events RETURN TO TOP	The Frechen International Guitar Seminar will take place March 26-April 4, in Frechen, Germany. The festival features classical concerts, master classes, lectures, and a guitar duo competition. For information, fax Hubert Käppel at (49) 221-42-23-12 or email J.Kienbaum@t-online.de. The Festival of the West, featuring western music, cowboy poetry, a western trade show, and a chuck wagon cook-off, will be held March 18-21 in Scottsdale, Arizona. For information, call (602) 996-4387. SummerSongs is a new songwriting camp that will take place June 28-July 2 at Ashokan Camp, Olivebridge, New York. Instructors include Steve Gillette, Mary McCaslin, and Artie Traum. For information, contact Penny Nichols ([914] 339-2025, SumSongs@ aol.com) or visit the camp's site at www.SummerSongs.com. The Dundee Guitar Festival, which will be held in Dundee, Scotland, August 4-8, features courses and concerts in classical, jazz, and Celtic music with artists like David Tanenbaum, Ralph Towner, and Tony McManus. For information, call (44) 1382 667618 or e mail tbaker@sol.co.uk.
New Releases RETURN TO TOP	The Musician's Atlas 1999 (Music Resource Group/Hal Leonard) is a new resource directory for the independent music community with thousands of listings of clubs, record labels, managers, press contacts, radio stations, and the like. For more information, go to www.musiciansatlas.com. Jonatha Brooke has released a live CD on her own label, Bad Dog Records ([877] 4BAD-DOG; www.jonathabrooke.com). The ten-song Jonatha Brooke Live includes material from the Story's repertoire as well as Brooke's two solo albums. A compilation of early Dan Hicks recordings has been released by Big Beat Records. Consisting primarily of publishing demos recorded while Hicks was a member of the Charlatans in 1967 and '68, Early Muses includes 21 previously unreleased, pre-Hot Licks songs. The import can be ordered from Globe Records, (415) 381-1702. The latest edition of the Blue Book of Guitars splits the comprehensive reference work into two volumes, one on acoustic guitars and one on electrics. The Blue Book of Acoustic Guitars, Fifth Edition, is available from Blue Book Publications, (800) 877-4867. Slide guitar enthusiasts will be interested in two new Dobro instruction books: Blues Dobro, by Doug Cox (Centerstream/ Hal Leonard), and The Dobro Workbook, by David Hamburger (Hal Leonard).
In Memory RETURN TO TOP	Renowned jazz guitar virtuoso and seven-string pioneer George Van Eps died on November 29, in Newport Beach, California, at the age of 85. Van Eps played with the Benny Goodman, Ray Noble, and Freddy Martin big bands in the 1930s, and in 1939 he convinced the Epiphone Guitar Co. to add a seven-string neck to his Epiphone De Luxe archtop, creating the first seven-string guitar, which he played thereafter. His sophisticated harmonic concepts are illustrated in the three-volume Harmonic Mechanisms for Guitar (Mel Bay).
Cyber Notes RETURN TO TOP	Guitar Solo Publications has a new Web site at www.gspguitar.com. Independent recording artists can get big-time online distribution through Amazon.com's new Advantage program. Visit their Web site for more information and an enrollment form.

 

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