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Several decades ago, I played a concert in Palm Springs during my exclusively classical music period. One of the people in attendance was Polish composer Roman Ryterband. His infectious enthusiasm was inspiring and he said he wanted to compose a work for me and this he did, a Sonata at that! It was just published, 2020, and now available. This publication by PWM is a wonderful production, very clear and easy to read with a nice fold out page for the last movement, text in Polish and English. Fulbright Scholar Tomasz Fechner currently at USC has done a brilliant job with editing and performing the work. Roman came from the land and legacy that produced Chopin and so many other brilliant composers and performers. In fact Chopin is quoted as saying "Nothing is more beautiful than the guitar, save two guitars!"
PWM.com.pl
An anonymous donor had Park City UT artist, VOLSIC do an oil of
Byron at the legendary Cafe Boheme of Jackson Hole
VolsicArt.com
Drew Struzan, (the legendary artist: Star Wars, Back to the Future, Blade Runner, the Muppets Movie, Indiana Jones) asked Byron Tomingas to create the music track for a video slide show of his art. Search the Internet for:
Struzan Tomingas
Sample from WY Native Son
The Wyoming Arts Council has given an award to Guitarist Byron Tomingas for 2015/16
The Council will provide match funding so Wyoming non-profits and towns can have Concert Guitarist Byron Tomingas at a cost comprable to any other artist!
http://wyoarts.state.wy.us/wac-grant/artists-across-wyoming/
Byron has a new album coming out to commerate the award, "WY Native Son"
Windy & Warm Variations - Byron Tomingas
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The Planet Jackson Hole Newspaper award: Gold for Best Classical Musician fourth in a row!
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It's a popular vote thing, not something you can enter, people either vote you in or not based on what you've already done which makes it one of the nicest honors.
The Jackson Hole Historical Society & Museum presented Byron with a "Historical Music" display. It features a kiosk with Byron describing the old instruments and talking about the musicians of Jackson Hole WY
Byron is a native of Jackson Hole WY and grew up listening and playing with the musicians of the valley. His family has been in Wyoming since 1913 and in Jackson since 1930. Jackson never had anyone that "lived" here year around until the end of the 1800's and many who came as babies then, were still alive when Byron was a child, its still a very young community.
Byron has presented many musical talks for the Jackson Hole Historical Society & Museum over the years. There are DVD's available at the Museum store with some of those talks, ask for Byron's DVD's
Tomingas was fortunate to see Andres Segovia in concert, play one of his Ramirez guitars and had the honor of being accepted to one of legendary Maestro Andres Segovia’s last master class in Spain.
Later, Segovia served as an honorary Board Member for the Carmel Classic Guitar Festival of which Byron was one of the founders.
This is the poster from the performance Byron attended and has hung on Byron's walls throughout his career.
Segovia's fingers were a full half inch longer than Byron's yet Byron's flexible fingers could reach a greater distance, ie; A.Lauro Vals III, Segovia plays an E bass against a high C instead of the G as written.
However, Byron says "Heavy but nimble hands have a rich sound that is impossible to duplicate, Jazz pianist Oscar Peterson has it, classical pianist Arthur Rubinstein had it, Segovia had it. Hearing them play in person was a treasure.
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While Segovia's hands were huge, they came down to a fine point. Even in his late 70's he was still playing better than most aspiring concert guitarists."
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