Saturday 12th September - 7:30pm
Jon Gomm with support from Gary Lutton
Christopher Farrington, & Paul MacAllister
Jon Gomm
We are delighted to welcome one of the most extraordinary guitarists alive today to Belfast Guitar Festival
A singular artist whose music has reached millions of listeners across the globe, Jon's approach to the guitar defies easy description. He plays rhythm, melody, harmony, and percussion simultaneously — turning the instrument into a full sonic world that seems impossible from a single pair of hands. His viral recordings have introduced him to audiences who had never seen anything like it, and his live performances leave those same audiences unable to quite believe what they've witnessed.
GARY LUTTON
There are guitarists who win competitions. There are guitarists who earn PhDs. There are guitarists who build the next generation of players from scratch. Gary Lutton does all three and makes it look effortless.
Winner of Sky Arts' Guitar Star in 2015, Gary went on to tour with Thomas Leeb, Nitin Sawhney and many others, complete a PhD in music at Ulster University, and found the Dionys Ensemble a fusion and world music group that reflects the restless breadth of his musical thinking. His style blends contemporary fingerstyle techniques with improvisational approaches borrowed from jazz and world musics, the result of a mind that refuses to stay in one lane.
He is also a founding member of US-based record label Fretmonkey Records and coordinates the Belfast Guitar Night, a regular event bringing guitarists from around the globe to Belfast. For Belfast Guitar Festival, Gary's appearance carries a particular resonance. He is part of this city's story a musician who came through Belfast's guitar community and went on to shape it. Seeing him on this stage isn't just a concert. It's proof of what happens when talent and commitment meet the right environment.
CHRISTOPHER FARRINGTON
Some musicians arrive on a stage fully formed, biography already written. Christopher Farrington is something else a player still in the process of becoming, and worth watching precisely because of that.
A jazz fingerstyle guitarist with a melodic sensibility and an ear for space, Farrington has been quietly developing his voice in Belfast's music community. This isn't his first time at Belfast Guitar Festival, and that return appearance means something. It means the work is happening.
The path from first lesson to festival stage isn't always visible from the outside. It should be. Belfast Guitar Festival exists partly to make that path real to show that the distance between picking up a guitar and performing for an audience who genuinely listens is shorter than most people think, and that it's worth every hour of the journey.
PAUL MacALLISTER
There are fingerstyle guitarists who make you lean forward and listen. Then there are fingerstyle guitarists who make you lean forward, listen, and laugh and somehow the music is better for it.
Paul MacAllister is the second kind.
Developed under the tutelage of Gary Lutton at Strandtown Academy, MacAllister has built a fingerstyle voice that is thoughtful, musical, and distinctly his own. His playing carries the hallmarks of serious study the interplay of melody and harmony, the patience to let a phrase breathe but what sets him apart in a room is his wit. He talks between songs the way good players play between the notes: nothing wasted, nothing forced, and always worth the wait.
Fringe Events
Ossia Music School Rockschool
Saturday 12th September - 2pm
FREE EVENT
Cresent Arts Centre
2-4 University Rd, Belfast BT7 1NH
Every year, the Belfast Guitar Festival opens its stage to the students from Ossia Music School, who never fail to make everything worthwhile. This is that moment.
The Rockschool performances puts the next generation of Belfast guitarists in the spotlight. Young musicians who’ve spent the year building their chops, finding their voice, and learning what it means to play with other people. No backing tracks. No safety net. Just guitars, amplifiers, and the kind of nervous energy that turns into something electric the moment the first chord lands.
Workshop: Modes & Scales with Paul McMordie
FREE EVENT
5a Sandown Road, BT5 6RT
Saturday 12th September - 2pm
Modes and scales have a reputation for being the dry, theoretical end of guitar learning. Paul McMordie's workshop will change that.
Drawing on four decades of teaching experience at Ossia Music School, Paul cuts through the confusion and gets straight to what matters not just what modes and scales are, but where they live in real music and how to actually use them when you're playing.
Whether you've been avoiding this territory for years or just want to finally make sense of it, this is a workshop built around the way guitarists actually think and learn. Expect clarity, practicality, and more than a few moments where things that seemed complicated suddenly aren't.
Ossia Music School presents Sunday Service
Saturday 13th September - 2pm
FREE EVENT
Cresent Arts Centre
2-4 University Rd, Belfast BT7 1NH
Some congregations meet on Sunday mornings. This one meets on Sunday afternoons and it's louder.
Sunday Service is the adult student ensemble from Ossia Music School and they bring the kind of energy that reminds you why you picked up a guitar in the first place. Classic rock, played live, played loud, played with everything they've got.