Enthusiasm runs high in the quaint town of Granite as the entire community prepares to host the first-ever Celedonio Romero Guitar Institute and the two-day Oklahoma Outback Art Festival; the events are planned in conjunction with three fabulous days of chamber, orchestra and classical guitar music at the 4th Annual Quartz Mountain Music Festival in Quartz Mountain State Park.

Celebrating the Romeros family’s 50th year of performing classical guitar, Pepe Romero (2008 music festival guest artist) returns July 21-26 with three other members of the Romero guitar family as faculty for the 1st Celedonio Romero Guitar Institute. For the first time, the Romeros will teach master classes and private one-on-one lessons in classical guitar for up to 20 collegiate-level and pre-professional fellows from across the nation and abroad.

David Palmer, Quartz Mountain Music Festival executive/artistic director, performed with Pepe Romero in Europe. “The Romeros are known as the ‘Royal Family of Guitar’ and are revered the world over. Everywhere we stopped, about 50 people were there to greet him and he knew most of them by name,” Palmer said. “When they come to Granite, you can expect that they will get to know people here as well.”

The Romeros, who have dazzled countless audiences and won the raves of reviewers worldwide, will also conduct discussion forums open to the public in Granite during the institute. In a free public student recital at 3 p.m. Sunday, July 26 in Quartz Mountain’s air-conditioned Robert M. Kerr Performance Hall, the audience will hear the fruit of the students’ labor. For more information or institute registration, call 580-649-7596 or visit www.qmmf.org.

“After working all week with the Romeros, the students will share what they’ve learned; and the Romeros will talk with the audience from the stage and carry on a dialog about art,” Palmer said.

The guitar institute will utilize the Granite School facilities for instruction and Camp Kate Portwood, a rustic Girl Scout Camp in west Granite, for afternoon practice and leisure time. Beautifully located in the shadow of Headquarters Mountain and Mt. Walsh, the camp contains an assortment of air-conditioned and non-air-conditioned meeting places, wide-open spaces, swimming pool, climbing wall, hiking trails, tennis court, natural amphitheater and an inviting wooded area with a bridge over a creek.

Throughout the week, members of Granite’s churches will demonstrate small-town hospitality by providing lunch and dinner for the students; Microtel Inn and Suites of Altus will offer discounted housing and breakfast, and Western Oklahoma State College will supply bus transportation. Oklahoma State Reformatory personnel will provide manpower for cleanup and other jobs; and through the reformatory’s Faith Based Program, inmates will give back to the community by creating murals, posters and artwork for the event.

Granite Mayor Tony Scarborough considers the rustic Camp Kate Portwood “a feather in the town’s cap.” He believes the guitar institute and art show will “put us on the map and put our community’s name on peoples’ tongues. It will promote the area and hopefully create an atmosphere where we can preserve some of our history and save our downtown. You’ve got to progressively go after new things; otherwise you stagnate and go backwards.”

Culminating the week-long guitar institute, Los Romeros (the guitar quartet) will perform with the Quartz Mountain Music Festival Chamber Players at 8 p.m. July 24 and with the Quartz Mountain Music Festival Orchestra at 8 p.m. July 25, both at the Robert M. Kerr Performance Hall in Quartz Mountain State Park. Purchase $28 advance concert tickets online at www.qmmf.org ($15 for students, $33 at the box office) or call the Altus Chamber of Commerce at 580-482-0210.

The Altus Chamber is also selling festival T-shirts, 2008 festival CDs and raffle tickets for four guitars painted by Oklahoma State Reformatory inmate artists. The drawing for the guitars occurs at the Saturday performance, when the Romeros will autograph the guitars and pose for photos with the winners.

In future years, the Quartz Mountain Music Festival will continue the guitar institute and add four other institutes. According to Dennis Williams of Mangum, Quartz Mountain Music Festival marketing director, “The guitar institute is the first stone in the foundation and will be expanded block by block so that it includes music institutes in different instruments, hosted by cities surrounding Quartz Mountain. As the festival institutes expand, it’s going to increase the revenues in the cities. It will all be focused on Quartz Mountain, but each town will get its own piece of the pie; and we have a tremendous potential to fill the arts vacuum in southwest Oklahoma with world-class performance.”