The Romero Guitar Quartet will perform in concert Saturday to kick off the week-long 5th Annual Quartz Mountain Music Festival; the students attending the festival’s 1st Annual Chamber Music/Orchestral Academy and the 2nd Annual Celedonio Romero Guitar Academy will give free public performances during the festival week in Altus, Cordell, Frederick, Granite, Hobart and Mangum.

Los Romeros (guitar quartet that played at the White House and before kings, queens and the Pope at the Vatican) will bring Southwest Oklahoma the truly intimate experience of the rhapsodic Spanish repertoire at 7 p.m., Saturday, July 24, at the Western Oklahoma State College Herschal H. Crow Fine Arts Center in Altus. The artists will also teach the guitar academy in Granite during the festival week.

The all-professional QMMF Chamber Players perform Friday, July 30; the QMMF Orchestra (joined by the Romeros and Orchestral Academy students) plays Saturday, July 31, both at 7 p.m. at the Robert M. Kerr Performing Arts Center. For advance tickets, call the Altus Chamber of Commerce at 580-482-0210; for more information, call 580-649-7596 or visit the festival website at www.qmmf.org.

Free public concerts by the Chamber Music Academy fellows and guitar students are scheduled at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, July 28, at WOSC in Altus, 1st Methodist Church in Mangum and 1st Methodist Church in Granite; and Thursday, July 29 at 1st Presbyterian Church in Cordell, Shortgrass Playhouse in Hobart and the Ramona Theater in Frederick.

The QMMF Board of Directors welcomes the public to observe, free of charge, the master classes for the Chamber Music/Orchestral Music Academy at WOSC--4:30 p.m. Monday, July 26 and Tuesday, July 27; 4:15 p.m. Wednesday, July 28; and 4 p.m. Friday, July 30. Guitar Master Classes at the Granite School are scheduled at 4 p.m. Sunday, July 25 through Thursday, July 29. A free student performance at the Quartz Mountain Performing Arts Center will conclude the festival at 2 p.m., Sunday, August 1. Call 580-649-7596 or 580-482-0210 to confirm the schedule prior to attending.

According to David Palmer, QMMF executive/artistic director, KCCU Radio of Lawton will lead “Concert Talk,” free pre-concert discussions from 6 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. July 24, 30 and 31, featuring program notes by John Boyle (instructor of theory and composition at Michigan’s Interlochen Center for the Arts), visits with selected musicians and audience question and answer participation.