2024 JAMES STROUD NATIONAL CLASSICAL GUITAR YOUTH COMPETITION ANNOUNCED:

All 2024 Stroud Competition applicants must submit their completed application, entrance fee, and two Preliminary Round YouTube video links on this website's ENTRY FORM. Please see the Stroud Competition RULES for important requirements.

We encourage all applicants to submit their completed Entry Form, Two YouTube Video Links, and Entry Fee well before the entry deadline in case of any technical difficulty.

We will announce the 2024 Stroud Competition's Semi-Finalists by Friday, March 1, 2024. The 2024 required set piece will be sent to all qualified Semi-Finalists by Friday, March 15, 2024.

2024 FINAL ROUND PRIZES:

1st Place: $10,000.00
2nd Place:  $5,000.00
3rd Place:   $2,500.00
4th Place:   $1,250.00

JUST ARRIVED: A new, musically resplendent, visually stunning 2023 Maxwell Sipe (USA) Custom Special concert classical guitar...

Good luck to this year's JAMES STROUD NATIONAL CLASSICAL GUITAR YOUTH COMPETITION PRELIMINARY ROUND APPLICANTS. This year's thirty accomplished students come to us from California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Kansas, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Texas. Stroud Competition Semi-Finalists will be announced by March 5, 2023. The Semi-Final and Final Rounds will take place live during the 23rd annual Cleveland International Classical Guitar Festival: June 1-4, 2023 at the Cleveland Institute of Music.

JUST ARRIVED: A wonderful new 2022 Gregory R. Miller cedar top classical guitar. We are delighted to offer Gregory Miller's beautiful concert guitars to our customers. Mentored by world-renowned guitar maker Jeffrey R. Elliott, Gregory Miller is an exceptional talent. This magnificent sounding, visually stunning guitar has impressive reserves of power. It is also quick to project the quietest, most delicate pianissimos. Its  smooth, creamy trebles and firm, deep basses are round, clear, and responsive to a wide range of color and attack. Its fundamental tones are uniformly solid while beautifully complemented by rich, well controlled overtones in all registers. The result: This guitar's perfectly balanced sound sparkles up and down and across the fingerboard. Voice separation is excellent as is harmonic blending... 

JUST ARRIVED: A new 2022 José Gonzalez Lopez (Granada, Spain) classical guitar. This lovely concert guitar has a deep, elegant, traditional, colorful, well-balanced sound with excellent sustain, clarity, projection, a quick response, and easy playability. A protege and workshop mate of renowned master guitar maker Antonio Marin Montero, José Gonzalez Lopez now an esteemed master in his own right crafts guitars which represent an outstanding musical value...

JUST ARRIVED: A rare new 2022 Antonio Marin Montero classical guitar. We have been honored to represent this illustrious master for over thirty years. This stunning concert guitar has a wonderful deep, bell like musical sound; is very precise with powerful trebles, mid-range, and bass; has excellent sustain, balance, and separation of voices, and a quick response to a particularly wide range of color and attack. It is also a dream to play...

Just Arrived: 1979 Robert Ruck Concert Model #199. By any standard this well maintained, one owner concert guitar is a superb example of Robert Ruck's finest work. Its deep, powerful, clear, full bodied, well balanced, colorful sound combined with its perfect neck contour and low easy action make this iconic concert instrument an inspiration to play and hear...

NEW: Petra Polácková (Czech Republic) performs El testament D'Amelia on a 2021 Jeffrey R. Elliott (USA) classical guitar

View: The 22nd annual Cleveland International Classical Guitar Festival forty page program book. This June we look forward once again to sharing world class classical guitar concerts, premieres, master classes, lectures, private lessons, and exhibits, with old friends and new from around the USA and beyond in a celebration of the classical guitar and art music: solo and ensemble, old and new.

RECENTLY ACQUIRED: A rare vintage 1966 spruce/CSA Ignacio Fleta e hijos (Spain) classical guitar from this great Spanish master's golden period. The magnificent deep sound of this iconic instrument recalls the musical attributes of a miniature organ... 

RECENTLY ACQUIRED: 1926 Domingo Esteso (Spain) classical guitar. This remarkable vintage classical guitar has an unusually pure, powerful, deep, woody concert sound with excellent sustain... 

JUST ARRIVED: A new 2022 ACHIM PETER GROPIUS double top classical guitar, Elegantly proportioned, lovely to look at, great fun to play - Gropius' powerful double top classical guitars possess a particularly lyrical traditional musical sound capable of pin point projection and a wide palette of color and attack...

JUST ARRIVED: A new 2022 MICHAEL CADIZ (Austria) Torres/Romanillos Model concert guitar: Lovely, deep, rich, focused, traditional sound; quick responsive dynamic range; unusually wide pallet of color and attack; strong fundamental tones throughout all registers; excellent balance; eye popping materials, visual aesthetics, and workmanship. In short, a musical jewel...

JUST ARRIVED: A pre-owned, one owner Joshia de Jonge double top concert guitar - cedar/Nomex/cedear/pale moon ebony - magnificent sound, stunning materials and workmanship...