Heart Strings

Classical guitar virtuoso Ricardo Cobo, jazz guitarist Joe Lano and Paco Arroyo and a seven-piece flamenco group highlight this weekend's concerts at the first Las Vegas Guitar Festival, continuing today through Sunday at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

The five-day festival, which began Wednesday with seminars, adult classes, concerts and a vendor's fair, is the brainchild of Cobo and director Nathan Fischer. They realized a festival of this type was needed.

"When I moved to Las Vegas in 2000," Cobo says, "there was no classical guitar here. Now we're hoping to make this a yearly event."

A classical guitar series during the school year at UNLV proved there was an audience for classical guitar concerts. Cobo also spearheaded that series, called the Allegro Guitar Society.

"It has done really well," he says. "I'm shocked because performing series are an iffy thing. We've gotten some of the top names in the business."

Cobo is the big name of the festival.

Born in Cali, Colombia, Cobo began guitar lessons at age 8 using a $20 souvenir guitar his uncle bought him in Brazil.

His parents were avid music lovers. His mother, a classical pianist, taught Cobo how to read music and play music as a child.

Just before his 13th birthday, Cobo was admitted to the Antonio Maria Valencia Conservatory and graduated on scholarship. He was accepted to the Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore and graduated from the North Carolina School of the Arts in Winston-Salem. He later studied with Bruce Holzman at Florida State University.

Cobo was the first Hispanic to win the Guitar Foundation of America prize and has been a soloist and recitalist in Europe and Asia and has played New York's Carnegie Hall.

Cobo has recorded classical and children's music, including "Tales for Guitar," "Brouwer Solo Works," and "Guitar Lullaby," plus recordings in collaboration with jazz and classical musicians, such as "Café 930" with Marc Gould and "Walking on the Water."

His latest recording is "Guitar Music from Latin America," featuring Cobo's arrangements of Latin American standards.

A Las Vegas resident, Cobo teaches 12 private students, plus students in Toronto, Los Angeles and San Francisco. He performed about 100 concerts a year until travel became more difficult after Sept. 11, 2001.

"I'm really trained as a player," Cobo says. "My heart really is in playing and organizing events with cutting-edge people.

All concerts this weekend are in Doc Rando Recital Hall in the Beam Music Center at UNLV.

Cobo is in concert at 8 p.m. today in the Beam Music Center's Doc Rando Recital Hall. Tickets are $25.

Meanwhile, Joe Lano and Lightwood Duo (Mike Christiansen and Eric Nelson) will perform today at 4:30 p.m. Tickets are $12.

A free student recital will take place at 4:30 p.m. Saturday.

At 8 p.m. Saturday, Paco Arroyo and a flamenco ensemble will perform. Tickets for that concert are $25.