As we announced a few months ago, Klavitara Zagreb Festival was held in Zagreb, Croatia on 7^th June 2014. Live4guitar was a proud sponsor of this amazing event at which many world famous guitar and keyboard names were performing. It took a bit of time to get all the material for this review so we’re bringing it to you a bit late but in depth with lots of videos and pictures.

Klavitara Zagreb Festival was organised by “Rock Academy Zagreb” supported by many sponsors from music industry. One of the sponsors was our website Live4guitar which helped by bringing some of our best site contributors and instructors from our Guitar Lesson Marketplace.

As we entered club “SAX”, which is located in Centre of Zagreb, we found ourselves in an amazing atmosphere and vibe that felt very promising. The sound check took a few hours and each performer looked 100% ready for the show. The list of musicians was quite large:

As you can see from the time schedule, the event started quite early. Each performer had a 30 min. clinic/masterclass and demonstrated unbelievable skills on their instrument.

Besides all these names, there was also a supporting band that later played the full 3 hours show, joined onstage by each of the day’s musicians. The supporting band was:

Titta Tani – Vocals

Dino Fiorenza – Bass

John Macaluso – Drums

Ivan Mihaljevic

The first to go out on stage was Ivan Mihaljevic, an extremely talented Croatian virtuoso and lead guitarist/singer in his own project called “Ivan Mihaljevic & Side Effects”. He performed four well rehearsed instrumental songs and answered a wide range of questions from the audience.

Ivan Mihaljevic

Roger Staffelbach

We then had Roger Staffelbach on stage who’ s worked with many big names from the metal/virtuoso industry, such as John West, Mike Terrana, Vitalij Kuprij, Shane Gaalas, Kevin Chown, John Onder, Goran Edman, Mistheria, Steve di Giorgio, Carsten Schulz, Ferdy Doernberg, David Shankle. Many will remember him from the band “Artension” and later “Angel of Eden”. Recently he made his own project “Artlantica” and released his debut solo called “Across the Seven Seas”. Roger demonstrated very respectable guitar skills both technically and compositionally.

Roger Staffelbach and Ivan Mihaljevic

Nicolas Quinteros

After two guitar clinics the audience welcomed Nicolas Quinteros - a Chilean composer, arranger and keyboard player. Nicolas is a founder of the instrumental rock project called “Q”. Besides his own projects, Nicolas has performed for several great national and international artists such as Mexican pop queen Yuri, the amazing fusion jazz guitar player Angel Parra and the great metal singer Tim Ripper Owens, to name just a few. Everything that Nicolas demonstrated on his instrument was of top world-class quality and audience really enjoyed it.

Nicolas Quinteros

Muris Varajic

The first performer under Live4guitar flag was Muris Varajic. Muris is a very well known guitarist in Balkans and one of the most popular instructors on our Guitar Lesson Marketplace. We're pretty sure that everyone in the audience already knew about amazing Muris’ guitar skills, and each second they looked hungry for more music. Muris demonstrated three of his own instrumental songs from his recent solo albums and one famous classical cover “Asturias” by Isac Albeniz arranged for electric guitar.

Muris Varajic - The Ancient Forest

Damjan Pejcinoski

After Muris, we had another L4g representative and our best selling instructor. His name is Damjan Pejcinoski. Damjan is Macedonian born guitarist with masters degree in jazz. His versatility on the guitar is remarkable. From rock/metal/shred to pop, jazz and even gypsy jazz, Damjan is a true star when he hits the stage. He performed with many famous names in the past including: Jennifer Batten, Michael Lee Firkins, Stu Hamm, Andreas Oberg, Dave Martone. Damjan is endorsed by PRS guitar company (USA), has received a custom-made guitar and is the first Balkan player ever endorsed by the PRS family.

Damjan Pejcinoski - Strings on Fire

Dragomir Herendic – Dragianni

Dragomir Herendic – Dragianni is another L4g instructor and the guy who made all the backing tracks for the Live4guitar competitions. Endorsed by Ibanez, he is very well known guitarist, composer and producer in Croatia who worked with all sorts of Croatian popular music stars. He performed his own 4 songs but most of his masterclass was dedicated to odd time signatures giving advice on how to count and play in odd times with ease.

Dragianni - Flying Potato Blues 

Mistheria

Another keyboard star that hit the stage was mighty maestro Mistheria. He’s an Italian piano, keyboard, keytar, organ player, producer and composer engaged both on Classical and Rock/Metal music genres. Mistheria is currently teaching piano/keyboard at Rock Academy Zagreb and the person who deserves most of the credit for organising this festival. His work in the past includes some very respectful names such as Bruce Dickinson, Roy Z, Rob Rock, Neil Zaza, John West, John Macaluso, Mark Boals, Anders Johansson, Barry Sparks, to name a few. This guy can play with both hands equally amazingly as you’ll see later in the videos. His truly incredible performance on keytar sounded rather like a highly skilled virtuoso guitarist and was a true surprise to see his versatile skills with pitch, vibrato, “wah” effects as well as incredible speed, accuracy and technique.

Mistheria

Marco Sfogli

After Mistheria we got Marco Sfogli on stage. Anyone who follows the huge ocean of world’s top class instrumental guitarists must have heard of this amazing Italian guy. The list of musicians he worked with is huge. James LaBrie, Jordan Rudess, Virgil Donati, John Macaluso, Adam Nitti, Matt Guillory, Peter Wichers, Peter Wildoer, Ray Riendeau, Mike Mangini, Bryan Beller and many more. He’s also part of the NY based prog band “Creation’s End” and the all star band “Neon Karma”. Marco performed four of his own instrumental songs and sounded just like a studio recording with unbelievable control and feel.

Marco Sfogli - Andromeda

Emir Hot

The last musician on stage was Emir Hot. People who follow stuff on Live4guitar website probably know that he is a founder of the whole Live4guitar family and project. Emir comes from Bosnia and Herzegovina but moved to London over 10 years ago where he graduated from the Guitar Institute and made some remarkable things in his career. Having won the Guitar Hero UK 2005 he proceeded to work with many big names of the rock/metal world as well as variety of session projects including film and theater. His last album “Sevdah Metal” featured John West on vocals and Mike Terrana on drums. Emir talked about the Live4guitar project and invited everybody who has some guitar skills and home recording facilities to join the team and become part of Live4guitar family. He demonstrated some material from L4g online lesson marketplace. Damjan Pejcinoski and Muris Varajic also joined him on stage and performed a few instrumental pieces together, both acoustic and electric.

Emir Hot - Whiskey Boogie

After all these masterclasses the audience had a chance to have a few hours break while the band was preparing for the big show. In the meantime Mistheria went on stage and announced winners of an acoustic guitar and an XKEYS little USB keyboard. The demonstration of that keyboard was an incredible performance of Yngwie Malmsteen’s song “Eclipse“ played with left hand only. People couldn’t believe that such song can be played on such small toy and sound that amazing. Watch the video and see it yourself!

XKEY - Mistheria: Malmsteen's Eclipse with left hand only

The concert started in a true hard rock manner and looked like a very well organised jam session. This picture shows the setlist with each musician on it.

Setlist

If you can't see it properly from the above picture here it is:

• DEEP PURPLE: Burn
• KANSAS (Malmsteen): Carry on wayward son
• WHITESNAKE: Call on me
• YNGWIE MALMSTEEN: Rising force
• EUROPE: More than meets the eye
• DRAGIANNI: Battlefield
• MISTHERIA: Dragon Fire
• MURIS VARAJIC: Silent inner cry
• DEEP PURPLE (Artlantica): Stormbringer
• VAN HALEN: Jump
• MURIS VARAJIC: Mojo Oro
• ARTLANTICA: Demon in my mind
• DAMJAN PEJCINOSKI: Give me the groove
• EMIR HOT: Fear of the storm
• ARTENSION: Into the eye of the storm
• Nicolas Quinteros' DELTA: New Philosophy
• MARCO SFOGLI: There's hope
• Macedonian traditional - Pelistersko Oro
• FINAL JAM (G3): Rocking in the free world

Rising Force - Yngwie Malmsteen cover (fan video)

The supporting band did an amazing job learning all the songs and performing to a world class standard. There were no rehearsals for this show. Everything was done by exchanging emails but when you have such skilled musicians, there’s no need to worry about something going wrong. People really enjoyed every single moment of it.

The last song was a 20 min. jam over well known classic “Rocking in the Free World” where each musician had a few rounds of solo. Some students from Rock Academy Zagreb also had a chance to jam with the band. Their names are:

Ante Vilenica (guitar), Josip Šipek (piano), Martin Crnički (guitar), Ivo Manzoni (piano), Mirko Prišlin (guitar), Roko Jurinec (drums). 

Jam - Rocking in the Free World

The whole evening show lasted for about 3 hours and finished shortly after midnight. Thousands of incredible sounding notes were played and everything went in a true spirit of love for music. Klavitara Zagreb Festival showed that with strong enthusiasm it is possible to put great musicians together from a few continents and organise an event to remember.

We really enjoyed taking part on this festival and are looking forward to the next one. Until then, we’re back to our headquarters where a lot of work is waiting for us and patiently wait for Klavitara 2015!

Live4guitar team

For more pictures, videos and info about Klavitara Zagreb Festival, visit their official website.
http://klavitara-zagreb-festival.net/