The Board of Directors is voted in by the board itself, three members are up for re-election each year. The Board of Directors maintains final authority over any decisions of the Executive Committee and any recommendations of the Advisory Board.
Felix Bullock
Jordan Charnofsky holds the Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the USC Thornton School of Music. He has served as principal guitarist/mandolinist for the Los Angeles Opera Orchestra. With his groups, he has been featured in the Playboy Jazz Festival, and the World Festival of Sacred Music. He has performed in Japan, Russia, and in L.A. at the Academy Awards. Jordan served as Musical Artist-in-Residence at the Brandeis-Bardin Institute for nine years. He is a published guitar composer/arranger with the Columbia Music Co. and Sony Music. Jordan joined the Board of Directors in January 2006.
Brian Head enjoys a vibrant, frequently frenetic career as a guitarist, teacher, and composer, performing as a soloist and collaboratively with many groups including the Los Angeles Philharmonic and their New Music Group, the New World Symphony, Le Rossignol, inauthentica, Jacaranda and Xtet. Brian's own compositions have been performed for many years throughout the U.S. in premier venues in New York, Los Angeles, and Washington, D.C., and abroad in such cities as Tokyo, Berlin, Madrid, Mexico City, Montreal, Sao Paulo, and Dubai.
Since 2001, Brian has held a dual appointment on the Classical Guitar and Composition faculties as a senior lecturer at the Thornton School of Music at the University of Southern California where he maintains an active guitar studio, lectures on a wide range of subjects, and directs the undergraduate music theory program. Since 2004 Brian has led the Guitar Foundation of America, as its president.
William Kanengiser is a founding member of the Grammy-winning Los Angeles Guitar Quartet, as well as a noted soloist, pedagogue, and arranger for guitar. Currently a Senior Lecturer in Guitar at the USC Thornton School of Music, Bill received his Bachelor's and Master's degrees at USC, being named "Outstanding Graduate for the School of Music" upon conferral of both degrees. In addition to his many solo recordings on the GSP label and LAGQ recordings for Telarc, Sony Classical and Delos, he has released DVDs for Hot Licks Video and Mel Bay records. Bill has been a member of the GFA Board of Directors since December 2005.
Robert Lane
Kate Lewis began her classical guitar studies with the Trinity College of Music, London. She received her Bachelors and Masters Degree from University of Southern California where she studied with Scott Tennant and James Smith. Kate currently teaches at Loyola Marymount University, Cal State University, Northridge and for the Los Angeles Community College District. Kate was elected to the GFA Board of Directors in 2003. She has served on the Pre-College Guitar Education Committee and as the Director of Development.
Martha Masters studied at the Peabody Conservatory with Manuel Barrueco, and at the University of Southern California, where she completed her Doctor of Musical Arts degree with Scott Tennant. Martha's international performing career began after winning the GFA International Competition in 2000; she now teaches at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, in addition to being Assistant Director of the National Guitar Workshop Classical Summit in Connecticut. Martha joined the Board of Directors in January 2004, was elected Executive Vice-President in June 2004, and was appointed General Manager in July 2005.
Greg Newton received his BM and MM degrees from the University of Southern California, and completed his DMA at the University of California, Los Angeles with Peter Yates. He has given concerts, broadcasts and classes throughout Great Britain, the USA, Canada, South America, the Middle East, Scandinavia, and Western and Eastern Europe. He is on the faculties of Glendale College and Los Angeles City College, serves as president of the American Guitar Society, and directs the AGS International Concert Series. Greg has been a member of the GFA since its inception in 1973, joining the Board of Directors in 1998.
Jack Sanders A graduate of California Institute of the Arts, Jack has been on the faculty of Pomona College and Claremont Graduate University since 1980. His performing career has included two compact discs and tours for more than 20 years throughout the United States and China with violinist Clayton Haslop, including the 1985 and 1988 GFA festivals. A frequent collaborator with other musicians, Jack has performed at the Sitka, Anchorage, Kapalua, Costa Rica and Sedona Chamber Music Festivals. A solo recording of the Complete Preludes of Ponce, Carlevaro, and Villa-Lobos has been released on Townhall Records. In addition, Jack is an accomplished luthier of modern and historical guitars. Jack has been on the Board of Directors or the Executive Committee of the GFA since 1988.
Board Members Emeritus:
For years of service, GFA acknowledges and honors these distinguished recipients with a lifetime membership.
Peter Danner attended the first meeting of the GFA in Santa Barbara (1973), at which time he represented the Lute Society of America. He edited the Lute Society's journal between 1975 and 1982, and served as that organization's president between 1977 and 1982. He was elected a member of the GFA board of directors in 1975 and served as chairman between 1977 and 1982, at which point he stepped down as chairman to take over the editorship of Soundboard from Jim Forrest. He continued as Soundboard editor until 2001, when he resigned the post. Peter was thus an eyewitness to the Guitar Foundation through its formative years.
Peter holds a Ph.D. in music history from Stanford University (1967) and pursued an active performing career in the early '70s. He abandoned this to concentrate on teaching and writing. For many years he taught at Menlo College in Menlo Park, CA, where he devised an innovative course in music appreciation. Peter is now retired and enjoying his grandsons.
Born near Heidelberg, Germany, Gunnar Eisel has developed guitar programs at California State University Los Angeles, Citrus College, Whittier College, and Fullerton College. As chairman of the Guitar program at CSULA for 27 years, Eisel guided many guitarists to successful careers. His successful "non-classical" students include Rusty Anderson (lead guitarist for Paul McCartney) and Mike Simpson (producer, Beastie Boys and Beck)
Mr. Eisel served as Executive Director of Guitar Foundation of America from 1987 to 2002. His fondest memories are of the many friendships and the camaraderie that evolved throughout his years at GFA. Mr. Eisel also served as ASTA Southern California Guitar chairman for 8 years and ASTA National Guitar Chairman for two years.
A full-time faculty member at Citrus College since 1989, Mr. Eisel has taught music theory, guitar, music history, and music technology classes. Mr. Eisel was instrumental in the development of the Citrus Audio and Video Recording Arts Center. Currently he is head of the music theory program at Citrus and the faculty lead for the Recording Arts Program.
Mr. Eisel's Worldguitarist.com is one of the most popular classical guitar sites on the internet. In his spare time, Eisel enjoys traveling abroad with his wife, collecting and showing rare plants, and playing with his grandson.
Jim Forrest (B.A. San Jose State College, 1954; B.M., California Institute of the Arts, 1970; M.A. California State University Los Angeles, 1971), attended the GFA inaugural meeting in Santa Barbara in1973, and was member #107 of the GFA. Shortly thereafter, he became the GFA Secretary/Treasurer. In 1977, he became the GFA General Manager, being responsible for renewals, new memberships, and Soundboard back issues, later on taking responsibility for the advertising accounts. At the end of 1980, with the retirement of John Tanno as editor of Soundboard, Jim became a co-editor, then Editor-in Chief. In this function, he took on the job of typesetter of the magazine for the next five years, when desktop publishing was in its infancy.
Jim attended many GFA conventions in both the United States and Canada, taking hundreds of photographs to be published in Soundboard, soliciting articles for the publication, and signing up new members for the GFA. After several years, he handed over his duties to other GFA members, but continued as a co-editor and proofreader for Soundboard.
Professionally, he continued as a teacher of guitar, and also English as a Second Language (ESL) in the Los Angeles and Orange County areas. During the last few years, he has been involved in Early Music, learning the recorder, sackbut, and viola da gamba, currently performing in various amateur groups in Southern California. The violin and the viola have also been added to the instruments he plays in amateur and youth groups.
David Grimes was first introduced to the guitar when he was a junior math major at Caltech and heard a recording of Andrés Segovia. He completed his degree in mathematics and subsequently worked at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena for several years while he pursued his guitar studies with Guy Horn and Oscar Ghiglia. He has directed the guitar program at California State University, Fullerton since 1973.
His illustrious career has include many successful publications, including Treasures of the Baroque. Volumes 1, 2, 3. Mel Bay Publications, 1991, 1992, 1993; Complete Sor Studies. Mel Bay Publications, 1994; Complete Giuliani Studies. Mel Bay Publications, 1995; Favorite Sonatinas. Mel Bay Publications, 1996; Luys Milán: The Complete Fantasias. Mel Bay Publications, 2000; Islands. Editions Doberman-Yppan, 2007; and Twenty-four Preludes. Editions Doberman-Yppan, 2007.
David joined the GFA in 1984 and became a member of the Executive Committee. He hosted the first fully independent GFA International Guitar Festival in 1985 at California State University, Fullerton. He served as GFA President from 1986 to 2005 and continues as Reviews Editor for Soundboard.
Thomas F. Heck (B.A., Univ. of Notre Dame, 1965; Ph.D., Yale University, 1970; MLS, Univ. of Southern California, 1977), was the individual most responsible for the creation of the Guitar Foundation of America, having convened its inaugural meeting in 1973 and drafted its Articles of Incorporation and Bylaws. As a Fulbright fellow (Vienna, 1968-69) he did seminal research on the early classic guitar (ca. 1800) and the life and works of Giuliani. His monograph, Mauro Giuliani: Virtuoso Guitarist and Composer (Columbus, 1995, r1997), is considered the standard work in the field. For over twenty years Dr. Heck served as the GFA Archivist; he taught music research methods and bibliography and was Head of the Music & Dance Library at the Ohio State University for most of his career. In 1994-95 he was a Fellow at the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities and Social Sciences (NIAS), where he undertook research on the iconography of the performing arts, the subject of a recent book, Picturing Performance…(1999). He has served as adjudicator and lecturer at various international guitar festivals since 1980; and currently is a freelance consultant, musician, and writer/lecturer based in Santa Barbara. See his online CV for a complete list of publications.
