The 12th ARTE International Mandolin Festival & Competition took place in October 2022. Roi Dayan from Israel won the first prize, Marine Moletto from France won the second prize, and Dilyara Sagdeeva from Russia won the 3rd prize. Results of the 2022 Competition Videos from performances of the winners and participants are now available. This is a great occasion to see and hear the best mandolin players from the World and to hear some of the best compositions for mandolin. Roi Dayan – Finale 2:38 C.Domeniconi ／ Ant-Asia 8:30 Avner Dorman ／ Mandolin Cocerto Piano : Nozomi ASAHARA Roi Dayan ..read more

Charlotte Kaiser, a young mandolin player from Germany, has just published her first album “Poems for Mandolin” Charlotte Kaiser – Poems for Mandolin The album begins with the Concertinho Colibri by Hamilton de Holanda in an arrangement for mandolin and piano. This concertinho has been published by Vincent Beer-Demander at Les Productions d’Oz. Charlotte Kaiser has studied with Beer-Demander in Belgium for one year. Hamilton de Holanda is one of the leading bandolim players in Brazil. He has enhanced the mandolin technique for Choro and Jazz and now as well the classical mandolin with his ..read more

Eugenio Giudici was an Italian composer for mandolin orchestra. Four compositions for mandolin orchestra by Eugenio Giudici can be found in the Nakano collection: Madrigale per Mandoloncello e Orchestra a Plettro Marcia Sinfonica Partita a Scacchi – Gavotta Serenata Veneziana I have found several videos of the compositions by Eugenio Giudici and compiled a playlist. Playlist Eugenio Giudici ..read more

Pedro Chamorro is one of the leading bandurria players in Spain. He has recently published a new CD with solo works by Fabían Forero Valderrama for the bandurria. Fabían Forero Valderrama is a composer from Columbia. He had the idea to use the Columbian bandola (which is very similar to the Spanish bandurria) as a solo instrument, inspired by the great solo works for guitar or violin. He has composed 22 studies for the bandola Andina Colombiana. Pedro Chamorro has selected 9 studies and one Capricho for his recording. Some of the pieces of this CD are also available as youtube videos. LATINOAM ..read more

Paul Ruppa has written the following article for the Mandolin Journal of the Classical Mandolin Society of America (CMSA). To make this article available for the mandolin community he asked me to publish it in my blog. Using the internet three years ago, I began to build a list of the oldest active mandolin orchestras around the world.  Initially, because I did not know the best way to search for the relevant information, the results were not very good. Even asking friends outside the United States for the names of the oldest active orchestras in their homelands was not very successful ..read more