Trio of Acoustic Guitarists to Perform in Poway

Three world-renowned musicians will convene for Guitar Masters, an acoustic performance at the Poway Center for the Performing Arts.

“We thought it would be cool to have multiple guitar players in one night with different sort of styles and different approaches to writing to music—just showing different possibilities of the steel-string acoustic guitar,” Guitarist and YouTube Andy McKee said.

McKee, Antoine Dufour and Stephen Bennett—all versatile guitarists and composers in their own regard—will showcase solo compositions and finish the concert with collaborative pieces at 8 p.m. on Feb. 25.

The music styles of the musicians—who each won various fingerstyle guitar awards—include altered tunings, tapping, percussive hits and a two-handed technique.

They will perform with different types of guitars. 

“I’ll be bringing my [six-string] guitar as well as my baritone guitar and my harp guitar,” McKee said. “There will be some tune differentiation as well.”

The collective tunes include Dufour’s “A Hiding Place for the Moon,” McKee’s “I Will See You Again,” and “Tres Padres,” which Bennett wrote for the tour.

“I wrote it specifically for the tour because we’re all dads,” Bennett said. “It’s kind of a happy tune.”

McKee said many YouTube fans show up at their shows.

“YouTube’s been great for all of us,” McKee said. “For me, personally, I had a lot of success on there back in 2006 when I posted videos up. That’s how a lot of people discovered my music.”

McKee is an acoustic guitar soloist who has garnered more than 150 million views on YouTube. He tours internationally with more than 200 lives shows a year.

He will be performing some of his YouTube hits, such as “Drifting” and “Rylynn,” in addition to songs from his latest “Joyland” album.

Dufour is a fingerstyle acoustic guitarist with more than 25 million views on YouTube. Some of the songs Dufour will play include “Glimmer of Hope,” “Ashes in the Sea,” and guitarist Don Ross’ “Dracula and Friends Part One.”

“It’s fun to play the shows and to collaborate,” Dufour said. “It’s cool also to just interact with the people after the concert.” 

Bennett—also known as the “Jedi Master of Fingerstyle Guitar”—is a harp guitarist, teacher, and composer. He has released 20 recordings of music, along with DVDs, books and other instructional materials.

The Guitar Masters tour, in its second version, starts on Feb. 21 at San Francisco. Poway will be its last California stop before the trio heads to Tucson to end the tour. The tour will start up again in September 2012 in the United Kingdom.

Ticket costs vary from $35, $40, $55 and $100 depending on the seat location. Click here to buy tickets.

To learn more about their work, visit McKee’s site, Bennett's site and Dufour's site.

Earlier on the same day, there will also be acoustic performance for Slow Jam Sunday from 1 to 4 p.m. at Old Poway Park, near the front of the gazebo. The Poway Folk Circle event will include learning new songs in a group setting and then performing together for a crowd.

To start your weekend of music, there will be an Open Mic event at 5 p.m. on Friday, Feb. 17 at Café Lily. The free weekly event welcomes all musicians to perform.