Schedule

After celebrating its 25th anniversary last year, the New York Guitar Festival launches into its second quarter-century with an all-star lineup and an expanding range of venues.  The 2025 series kicks off on Friday, June 13 with perennial NYGF favorite Bill Frisell.  The legendary American guitarist will perform in a duo setting with Icelandic bass player Skúli Sverrisson in the festival’s first-ever event in the beautiful 19th century Gothic revival building that houses the First Unitarian Congregational Society. 

The concert will also feature another pairing, as the adventurous guitarist/composer Mary Halvorson joins drummer Tomas Fujiwara.  Between the two duos, you can expect to hear a kaleidoscopic evening of sonic shape-shifting.

Bill Frisell returns to the NYGF, and, as he has done each year, he’s bringing a new duo partner. This time, it’s the Icelandic composer and bass guitarist Skuli Sverrisson, whose discography includes work with Laurie Anderson, Lou Reed, Wadada Leo Smith, and over a hundred others. Frisell, meanwhile, has an enormous discography that reflects how his career has routinely ignored genre boundaries, working across rock, jazz, country, experimental, classical, and West African music. Guitar fans can be a contentious, opinionated lot – but there is unanimous agreement on Frisell’s place in the pantheon.

Mary Halvorson is a genius. But don’t take our word for it – she was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship, the so-called “genius grant,” in 2019 for her wide-angled approach to music. Building on the guitar’s presence in so many different musical scenes, her compositions draw on jazz, contemporary classical, noise, and psychedelia. Her duo partner, drummer Tomas Fujiwara, has played in her avant-power trio Thumbscrew and in her most recent albums, featuring a chamber-jazz sextet.