Head of the Eastman School Music and Naxos recording artist Nicholas Goluses joins us to talk about teahcing, the early days of the Manhattan School Of Music's gutiar department, Segovia and more. 

An amazing guitarist, composer and guy talks about career changes, taking chances and working hard.  

Recording Artist and International Guitarist Miloš Karadaglić joins us. 

I spend some time with an old college buddy who's doing fantastic things in Philadelphia for undeserved communities and celebrating the release of a new album. 

Classical Guitar Alive hosts Tony Morris Talks about outreach, organization and radio on this long lost episode. 

I zoom with Gioia De Cari (soprano) and John Olson (guitar) about their Dec. 12 video release party. www.olsondecariduo.com  for more info. Don't forget to contribute to the show: www.bretwilliamsmusic.com/support. 

The Grammy Winner talks!

An amazing guitarist, recording engineer and all around good guy, Uros Baric joins us on the first ever remote episode of CGI.

Oh man do I love this guy. My grammy award winning buddy, Clarinetist Linus comes on the show. He’s tall and he wins things and is still super nice! 

Jazzzzzz guitarist Randy Napoleon is coming from the University of Michigan to talk with us about the Detroit scene, touring in his forties, and New York. And a little about his kids, but not annoyingly so.  

Laura Snowden visits Brooklyn to talk about guitar and music and teaching and the whole thing! Sponsored by nkoda. 

James Lentini comes on to talk about academic administration, composition, guitar, his new concerto and drinks a cup from my two year old "back up" bag of Dunkin Doughnuts coffee. Good sport Jim! 

The luthier and cofounder of Rivington Guitars talks about how much everything sucks with his fellow generation x-er, Burp Williams. 

Part 2 of Victor Kioulaphides. A happy accident. 

From the Texas Guitar Quartet and JAI Trio, Isaac Bustos and Al Montiel stop by.

Episode 115 Jesse Flowers

Episode 110: Stephen Goss

Episode 109 Matthew Marshall 

I learn about the Spanish Inquisition from Adam Del Monte as he prepares for the first performance of his newly penned Flamenco Opera. 

The boys form Germany come on to talk about their new project at the Elnora Guitar Festival. 

I hang out with Jazz guitarist Rez Abbasi during the Ellnora Festival at the University Of Illinois. Happy Tax Day.  

He taught me how to play Villa Lobos, how to convey the emotional nuances of modern Brazilian Music, and how to do my hair in 1997.  We never even met. Until Now! Here is my time with Brazilian guitarist Fabio Zanon. 

Hawaiian Guitarist Makana comes on to talk about the tradition of his instrument and the theoretical implications of the harmonies produced by the people of his home state. I went to Medieval Times for my 41st birthday. So I’m pretty cool too.

100 episodes and four years of complaining! Let’s cap it off with one featuring the world’s whiniest classical guitarist, educator, and over eater: Mike Gentile and Simon Powis interview me. Here’s to 100 episodes and thank you for your support. Become a member today at BretWilliamsMusic.com to receive exclusive content. This episode is sponsored by SavageClassical.com and ClassicalGuitarCorner.com. 

Scott Schwartz, director of the Sousa Archives and Center for American Music, and Paul Warnik, a steel-guitar historian/collector tell us the little known story of the rare Grand Letar and it’s mysterious but prolific creator Letritia Kandle.

Chris and Julian team up and give one of the best acoustic performances any of us have ever seen. Afterwards I immediately started submitting applications to marketing firms. I got the chance to speak with them at the 2017 Ellnora Guitar Festival. 

Costa Rican guitarist Guido Sanchez Portuguez joins me at the 2017 Ellnora Guitar festival after becoming the first Professor of Guitar in the history of the University of Illinois. 

He's got the blues. I have the interviews. Together we team up to form BLINTERBLUE, a podcasting robot-pizza-monster who feels unloved and has the need to express his frustration in melancholy verse over a pentatonic melody. Jontavious Willis delivers the best blues performance I've ever seen and joins me at the 2017 Ellnora Guitar Festival. 

Educator and guitarist Jennifer Trowbridge speaks to a panicked, gout riddled shell of a man about her various projects and favorite foods. 

The Polish guitarist tells me what it’s like to teach at San Fransisco Conservatory and tour the country after his 2007 GFA win. Do you want to come see me play in a fifty seat converted office space in NYC at the end of the month? Tune in for details! Happy Halloween! 

Brazil, New York, and daily workouts in the water keep this legendary jazz guitarist and composer lean, mean, and ready to scream. Also, sometimes children like to threaten me with sharp objects, but rent is rent! Am I right ladies?!

I can roll a cigarette, drive a stick, and tie my shoes, but I can't make guitars. Cause I DONT LIK SCHOOL! SCHOOL SUCS! William Kramer Harrison loves school, and loves producing some of the finest instruments on the market. It's luthier William Kramer Harrison on Classical Guitar Insider with your host Burp Williams. 

Klick! Klack! Percussion Guitar Solo Attack! It's Columbia University professor and new music composer/performer Arthur Kampela. 

Clarice Assad joins us and talks about growing up in Brazil, the American academic music scene and being a jazz musician in New York. I try to sell you mattresses. 

Humanitarian Guitarist and partner of the outreach project Kithara, Matthew Rohde visits for an interview. Also: I got fired last week! Who want's cake?! 

It's Shark Week! Hawaiian hybrid classical guitarist and spear fisherman Ian O'Sullivan told me he eats Spam Sushi! Gross Ian. Gross. 

Christopher Mallet released three albums in the same year. Including two duo albums with two different guitar duos. He’s also married to four women, has a pet lion and is going into improv comedy. He’s a risk taker, a deal maker, and a ball breaker! (he’s a sweetheart)

 Herschel Garfein shares that even he, an Grammy award winning composer and librettist, eats bananas out of garbage cans and smokes cigarettes off the sidewalk. Also, I move to an area contaminated by an oil spill in 1950 that was three times the size of Exxon Valdez. Art in America is alive and well and littered with high concentrations of free radicals. 

Gyan Riley is a composer, magician’s apprentice, guitarist and the first man to give birth. How does he juggle it all? You have to listen to find out.

Damien Kelly comes from Ireland: a country of pleasant green hills, crisp afternoons, warm traditions, and old, proud houses.  I come from Stockton: a county of sweaty green dew rags, crips after school, warm crack pipes, and old folks homes.

The guitar professors from Mannes College of Music and Princeton University come to Brooklyn on a rainy day, drink old milk with watered down coffee, and give an interview to a broke 38 year old with gout. Let’s go Mets though.

A Classical Guitar Insider EXCLUSIVE: It’s the first time Michael shares his side of the story about that thing in 1986. That thing where he became “the guy Segovia kicked out of the masterclass at USC.” He also won the first GFA, has a robust guitar program at the University of New Mexico, and just recently cut his hair. He’s an all around great guy and I wouldn’t kick him out of anything.

Hunter College guitar professor Mariano Aguirre sits down and talks about how much he loves teaching, playing in ensembles and running the Mannes Guitar Festival. I talk about quitting a teaching job because they had a staff only copy machine (no faculty allowed). That was the last straw. Later dude.

Pablo Sainz Villegas is probably the best performer on the circuit these days. He captures the audience with broad and expressive phrasing, a vulnerable character, Mediterranean good looks, and the perfectly tailored Italian suit. I look like a free range chicken egg with a gambling problem. And I’m not in a good mood. 

Grammy nominated recording engineer David Bowles takes time out from a three day lecture at NYU about spherical recording techniques and explains in scientific terms what I’ve been telling you hipsters for years: Records are not better than CD’s. Sorry Mustache Kid, you’ll have to find something else to spend your money on. Maybe hats? 

July 16, 2015: Ryan’s Daughter 350 E. 85 St. New York, NY 10128 $15 comes with free drink. Party afterwards in the venue. 

Gizem Gokoglu (not pronounced Gizem Gokoglu), a brilliant young composer from Turkey, explains how she had to choose between engineering and composition. I had to choose between working in mens’ suits at JC Penny and catering at birthday parties in Yonkers. 

Juilliard Guitar Professor Tali Roth thinks I’m from Texas. I’m not from Texas everyone. I just struggle with my weight. I’m from California. 

With the instrumentation of an early European jazz ensemble, this group of fusion players reference Andalusia, Americana and Django Reinhardt. It's Django Unchained!  

Bay Area guitarist Giacomo Fiore argues that new music is not too new and I ask Chris Roberts from the San Fransisco Examiner if it’s ethical for Fanfare to charge musicians for positive reviews. Spoiler alert: it’s not.

EMI recording artist Xuefei Yang explains to me that China is a country that is not in Africa and that Africa is not a country either. USC Professor William Kanengiser comes on to talk about the new Los Angeles Guitar Quartet release, and I buy a chair for the park. 

ders of my favorite ensemble in New York, violinist Colin Jacobsen from the Brooklyn Rider, The Knights and Yo Yo Ma’s Silk Road. But before I do that, I complain for 20 minutes about journalists that charge for positive reviews in magazines. Then I fantasize about going into real estate.  

If you don’t want to hear grown ups talk about drugs, leather pants, dropping out of college, or putting a classical guitar through a wood chipper on stage, you shouldn’t listen to me and multi media artist Dominic Frasca.  

Composer Carlos Rafael River talks about studying with Randy Newman at USC, writing the music for the movie A Walk Among the Tombstones staring Liam Neeson and his upcoming score for the film The Ballad of Big Diaper Bret, a story about a rosy cheeked California boy who dreams of opening a stand up MRI station in Grand Central. 

Adam Holzman, from the University of Texas, sits down with his old student (me) and reminisces about Segovia, Ghiglia, winning the GFA and getting a call from a student the night of his concert asking him where it was and how much it will cost. (also me age 19)  

San Fransisco has been to the Superbowl, the World Series and the NBA playoffs in the last year or so, but nothing more exciting has happened than the advent of Mobius Trio, a new and exciting group of young Bay Area guitarists out to beat new music into the minds of the many. Matthew Holmes Linder serves as their ambassador to Big Diaper Bret's winter estate. 

Soundboard Magazine calls him "masterful and stylish," The Boston Globe calls him "sensitive," David Sterobin calls him "Superb," and I call him "happy pie faced little oat oat," founder of Arc Duo, Bradley Colten joins me to talk about bacon (american composer Ernst Bacon).

The up and coming Colin Davin talks about being the assistant to Sharon Isbin at Aspen, Juilliard, performing new music for new audiences and coffee. The next time you get a coffee at Joe, the Barista could be one of the best guitarists in the world. 

Darth Vader comes on the show to talk candidly about performing classical music on electric guitars, teaching at Manhattan School of Music, and living with a mezzo soprano. Oh wait it's Oren Fader. Darth Vader doesn't play guitar. If he did he probably wouldn't record John Dowland's Melancholy Galliard.  

I take a vacation into the dreadlocks of Brazil Guitar Duo's Joao Luiz. He talks  about his move to the U.S. and sudden rise to Classical Guitar fame (meaning about sixty highly educated musicians and four hundred old men can't get enough). 

Manhattan School, Curtis Institute Professor and Grammy Award winning guitarist/producer/composer/juggler/tennis champion and non-stop dancer David Starobin is on the show

The Devil came back from Georgia! Andrew Zohn returns to his home in the North East and discusses his rise to power from the lowly groveling of Graham St. in Austin to the high chair of full time professor at Columbus State University.

Guitarist Ana Maria Rosdao talks to me about Puerto Rico, Segovia, judgmental pedants, and Segovia.

Head of the Yale University guitar department, Curator for the Art of the Guitar concert series at 92nd St. Y, and Vice President of the United States of America Ben Verdery gives us the dirt on John Williams, Chuck Berry and Keith Richards.

Big Bad Jerry Willard takes time out from transcribing Bach and making Guitar-Doctors at SUNY Stony Brook to teach me about ancient instruments and how to control my anger. 

I interview award winning guitarist and U.S. Artistic Ambassador to Africa, Dr. Lily Afshar. 

Adam Tully is currently conducting interviews and documenting the current state of the Tango in Argentina and the U.S for his upcoming podcast. He created his own guitar program at NYU, and has a beard. He has a sunny disposition and is available for Bat/Bar mitzvahs and corporate events. But so am I, so call me first. 

Columbia University Professor Marco Cappelli and his daughter come to my house where we talk about Harry Potter, Oscar Ghiglia, and the color blue. 

 I interview someone else who's spent the last 20 years dealing with bad people. How are we going to process this anger? By taking it out on our family of course! My freind Christopher Gotzen-Berg comes on the show. 

The Cuban born guitarist escapes Castro, works his way from a factory floor to Yale and becomes one of the most powerful musicians in our industry. Also I complain about my birthday and Best Buy.

I sit down with the guy who has our old press kits, Presenter/Composer/Guitarist Frank Wallace. Oh and stop sending him your head shots from 12 years ago. You know who you are (I didn't know Doug James was 28!).

I talk to fellow struggling NYC guitarist Mike Gisinan about his new project combining Japanese and European Chamber instruments and making less money than a hotdog vendor. 

I do like men my own age! New Music and old men on episode 22 (year olds suck). 

I hate people that post about their half marathons, people that post pictures of their kids instead of themselves, and men my own age, except for University of Baltimore/Peabody at John's Hopkins guitar professor Zane Forshee. Him I like. Oh, and I hate 22 year olds.  

The 27 year old manager of some of the biggest young names in our industry (Caballero, Goryachev, Villagas, Palmer) throws his superior intellect at me and makes me Karate chop the door after he leaves. Just kidding. He’s awesome.   

Luthier Gary Lee explains why guitars cost so much when they are not made by machines and teams of imported slave laborers in the middle of Pensylvania.

It's ZAIRA MUNDO ZAIRA MUNDO!!! Crazy fun conversation with who the New York Times calls "arresting and colorful" and who we call "The Tornado." Zaira Meneses opens up about Mexico, her blossoming career and being married to Eliot Fisk.

Morton Gould ASCAP composer, and old college friend mine, Dr. Anthony Joseph Lanman talks about how awesome it is to spend nearly two decades composing award winning music that is performed by dozens of ensembles in as many countries and then be totally broke. 

Carlos Barbosa-Lima talks football, baseball, Brazilian history and throws in a bit about being a founding father of the Bossa Nova Movement with Antonio Carlos Jobim, Charlie Bird and others. We also drank allot of beer. 

The Greek Goddess of guitar, Antigoni Goni, talks about her years as heads of the Columbia University Guitar Department, the Julliard Preparatory Division, and the Royal Conservatory in Brussels. Bret tells her that he spent five hours playing Grand Theft Auto Five yesterday and earned the "you ain't my daddy" achievement on x-box live.

Guitarist and producer of the Bay Area's Omni Guitar Series Richard Patterson talks about his role in the movie Five Year Engagement and takes Bret out to a late lunch at a nearby outdoor cafe where they sing Cucurrucucu to women coming home from work. The women were not amused. 

Manhattan School of Music Guitar Co Chair David Leisner and Bret talk about bad smells and the second avenue subway. And about guitar and their parents. 

The best thing to come out of Columbia since Regan Era cocaine, Francisco Roldan sits with fellow Mannes alum Bret Williams to share tips on dealing with back pain. YOU GOTTA HEAR THIS!

"Hey man! You play flamingo guitar right? Like the mexican stuff? Wanna play when I marry my sister this weekend? Wait, you don't like Obama right?" Stop being stupid, and learn about flamenco guitar from America's top Flamenco Expert/Performer Dennis Koster on this episode of Classical Guitar Insider with me, Burp Williams. 

Hail to the Chief! New York Classical Guitar Society President John "How You Like Me Now" Olson joins Bret to talk science and guitar, because that's all Bret ever wants to talk about. Because he's so smart. 

William Kanengiser complements Bret on his apartment and sits down for coffee with him. Then he remembers that he's a professor at USC, has a Grammy, and is a founding member of the Los Angeles Guitar Quartet. Instead of walking out, he takes a deep breath, smiles, and continues to answer the questions the embittered, broken man-child that calls himself an artist (Bret). 

Bret gets schooled by his teacher Fred Hand. 

Amenian guitar demon Gohar Vardanyan shows Bret what it's like to know what you're talking about; an inspired hour with the recent Juilliard grad who just released her first album. 

Bret hangs out with the best guitar duo in the world and messes up the audio just like he messes up everything and it isn't fair.