7th Annual Texas Guitar Competition and Festival

Congratulations to the 7th Annual Guitar Competition Winners

1st Place
Nemanja Ostojic

Serbian-born Nemanja Ostoich returns to UT Dallas after winning first prize in the 8th Annual Texas Guitar Competition in 2008. He recently completed his master’s degree in music at the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University, Bloomington, and will stay for another year to complete the Jacobs School’s highly selective Artist Diploma program, for which only three students have passed auditions. Ostoich has won first prize at several international competitions, including the Guitar Art Competition in Belgrade, both the Serbian and Yugoslavian State competitions for young musicians, the Festival of Classical Guitar Sinaya, Romania, the Volos Guitar Festival, Greece, the Niccolo Paganini Guitar Festival, Italy, the Guitar Arts Festival in Montenegro and the Schadt String Competition in Allentown, PA.

2nd Place
Mircea Gogoncea

Mircea Gogoncea, born in Bucharest, Romania, is a musician currently studying under the guidance of Joaquín Clerch at the Robert Schumann Hochschule Düsseldorf, Germany. As a guitarist, he has been invited to perform on 4 continents before the age of 16. As a guest, he has taken part in over 200 concerts, TV and radio shows in 11 countries before having reached 20 years of age (including but not limited to performances in Germany, Italy, Spain, the USA, Greece, and Turkey). He won first prize at the Guitar Foundation of America Youth Solo Guitar Competition Senior Division in Los Angeles, USA, 2007.

3rd Place
Scott Borg

Australian-born Scott Borg began his guitar studies at the age of seven with his father, Victor, and was soon after accepted into the young artists program at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music. In 2006 he was invited to perform for President Hu Jintao, Peoples Republic of China, at his internationally televised address to the United States of America at Yale University. Currently a candidate in the Doctorate of Musical Arts program at New England Conservatory under the tutelage of Maestro Eliot Fisk, he received his Artist Diploma (Yale University), Masters of Music (The Juilliard School) and a Bachelor of Creative Arts with First Class Honours (University of Wollongong).

4th Place
Silviu Ciuleu

Silviu Ciulei is a junior at Middle Tennessee State University, won second prize at the Appalachian Guitar Competition in Boone, North Carolina approximately one month before the competition at UT Dallas. He has performed with The Black Sea Philharmonic, a Romanian orchestra. Ciulei has appeared on Romania’s national television and performed throughout Europe and the United States. In 2006, he earned first prize in the Beethoven Club Guitar Competition in Memphis. Dr. William Yelverton, Ciulei’s instructor, calls him “a remarkable genius, a true prodigy…certainly the best for his age”