{"id":1010726,"date":"2026-08-19T12:13:20","date_gmt":"2026-08-19T12:13:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/1010726\/"},"modified":"2026-08-19T12:13:20","modified_gmt":"2026-08-19T12:13:20","slug":"new-york-citys-annual-guitar-festival-amps-up-bryant-park","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/1010726\/","title":{"rendered":"New York City\u2019s annual Guitar Festival amps up Bryant Park"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t\t\t<img width=\"1200\" height=\"800\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Ziggy-and-Miles-promotional-image-5-credit_-Romer-Pedron.jpg\" class=\"crop-center wp-post-image\" alt=\"Ziggy and Miles were on the lineup for the Guitar Festival.\" decoding=\"async\" fetchpriority=\"high\"   title=\"New York City\u2019s annual Guitar Festival amps up Bryant Park 1\"\/>\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>Ziggy and Miles were on the lineup for the Guitar Festival.<\/p>\n<p>Photo by Romer Pedron<\/p>\n<p>For 48 hours, Bryant Park welcomed The New York Guitar Festival as part of their summer Picnic Performance series.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n<p>The festival opened with a \u201cCarnival of Classic Guitar\u201d on Friday, Aug. 15 with French guitarist Rapha\u00ebl Feuill\u00e2tre performing alongside Goran Ivanovic and Fareed Haque, Australian duo Ziggy &amp; Miles, and Brazilian guitarist Gabrielle Leite Attendees enjoyed music along with dinner from food trucks or picnics from home on the lawn.<\/p>\n<p>The second evening brought together a curation of genre-defying guitar players as part of that night\u2019s \u201cMisbehaving Guitar\u201d theme. Founded in 1999 by WNYC radio host John Schaefar and producer Dan Spellman, this year\u2019s lineup featured psychedelic punk rock to a mixture of folk and jazz that left the park buzzing.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe love bringing all different kinds of arts and culture to the center of Manhattan for Picnic Performances,\u201d Vice President of Public Events at Bryant Park Dan Fishman said. \u201cIt\u2019s free, there\u2019s no line. Our goal is to make it one of the most comfortable and accessible spaces to see the arts.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Composer Gyan Riley, who is best known for his touring and recording work with two-time Rock &amp; Roll Hall of Fame nominee Paul Simon, opened the show. He performed a solo song, before bringing out the rest of his jazz ensemble that featured a drummer and bass. Riley\u2019s guitar plucking was intentional and tight, yet the improvisational style felt smooth.<\/p>\n<p>French-Algerian acoustic guitarist Pierre Bensusan showcased his mastery of the wooden instrument by strumming in a jazzy folk style. About two-thirds the way through his act, Bensusan showcased a beautiful solo on his acoustic guitar.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The Messthetics, a punk-jazz jam group created by Fugazi\u2019s bass and lead guitarist headlined the event.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n<p>They were later joined by legendary avant-garde guitarist Marc Ribiot, and together the group stole the show. The rockers used lots of distortion and funky tuning as the sound waves reverberated through the crowd.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>To attend another one of Bryant Park\u2019s free picnic performances, presented by Bank of America, visit <a href=\"https:\/\/bryantpark.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Bryantpark.org<\/a> for additional shows through September.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ziggy and Miles were on the lineup for the Guitar Festival. Photo by Romer Pedron For 48 hours,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1010727,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5122],"tags":[5229,89274,404603,82341,405,403,5226,5225,5228,5227,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":["post-1010726","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-america","tag-bryant-park","tag-guitar-festival","tag-guitars","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-newyork","tag-newyorkcity","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1010726","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1010726"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1010726\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1010727"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1010726"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1010726"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1010726"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}