VGO/MEA 2026
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What We Are Planning
VGO Live Texas
The 2026 VGO Live project continues a growing national series that began with the Hawaiʻi VGO Live video in 2023, followed by the VGO Heritage edition filmed in Alaska in 2024 and VGO San Francisco Live in 2025. Each project has focused on documenting outstanding guitar programs while highlighting local identity, culture, and educational values. In 2026, VGO Live will be based in Austin, Texas, in collaboration with Austin Classical Guitar. Building on the experience gained from previous editions, the Austin project will combine interviews, student performances, and full ensemble recordings to create a documentary-style portrait of one of the most influential classical guitar organizations in the U.S., further strengthening VGO Live’s mission to support and connect guitar communities through high-quality visual storytelling.
Ensemble Collaborations
Our collaboration model brings together an orchestra of students from multiple U.S. states – New York, Texas, Virginia, Kentucky, Nevada, South Carolina, and New Jersey – working in close partnership with state-level organizations. During the 2025 season, we realized our largest project to date, feelslikeimfallinginlove by Coldplay – VGO Collaborations, featuring 150 students from the U.S. and Europe and uniting 10 ensembles. Building on this experience, the current season focuses on producing ensemble videos that highlight student artistry while strengthening each state association’s capacity to document and share their programs.
VGO Inclusion
VGO Inclusion is a new project strand focused on accessibility and adaptive learning, reflecting our commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion. It explores how ensemble music-making can authentically include neurodiverse learners and students of varied abilities through adaptive teaching methods and instruments. The pilot project, in collaboration with Justice Alan Page Elementary School (ISD 622), serves nearly 900 students from diverse linguistic, cultural, and socio-economic backgrounds. Using the 3 Strings approach alongside traditional Western notation, the project supports scaffolded music literacy across K–5, features a neurodiverse pop ensemble performing at the 2026 Minnesota Music Educators Association conference, includes new inclusive repertoire by Samara Sturges, Nathan Loesch, and Ruth LeMay, and is professionally documented to create an advocacy-focused short film.
Lead Guitar Collab
In 2026, we are continuing our collaboration with Lead Guitar to create a large-scale video project featuring up to 200 students from across the country, alongside the guest ensemble Volterra Project Trio, performing O Fortuna by Carl Orff. In 2025, this collaboration saw strong success with two major projects – Kashmir by Led Zeppelin featuring Douglas Lora, and Let Her Go featuring Daniel Vildósola, the original guitarist from the official music video.
VGO Connect
The VGO Connect initiative remains one of our most requested programs. In 2025/26, we will host 10 masterclasses. This initiative has thus far hosted a variety of celebrated artists including Ana Vidovic, Douglas Lora, Zaira Meneses, Laurel Harned, Marko Topchii, Alan Liu, Bokyung Byun, and TY Zhang. Educators from South Carolina, Nevada, New York, Texas, Florida, and Minnesota have already signed on, ensuring this project reaches a wide range of students across the U.S.
VGO Education
This year, we will offer five virtual workshops designed for classroom guitar programs. These 45-minute sessions will explore the fundamentals of audio and video production, giving students hands-on insight into microphone placement, camera use, lighting, and editing basics. Teachers expressed that these skills are not only valuable for music but also empower students in today’s digital landscape.
Our Focus
Pristine Audio Quality
We strive for perfection when it comes to audio. This is why we spend upwards of 150 hours editing every single submitted track in each project. We also use automatization of volume to bring musical ideas forward and advanced mixing techniques such as macro and micro tuning, noise manipulation, multi-band compression etc. We finish each mix with a high-end reverb.
Visually Striking Transitions
We are always creating new custom animated grids, transitions and sequences so the viewers stay focused throughout the videos.
Story Driven Videos
Our approach is story first and we are always aiming to adapt our visual language to the theme of the composition.
Educational Value
Throughout the season, we are organizing project-specific Zoom meetings with educators and students, advising them how to go about recording their submissions. Recording is a craft that takes time to master, but we want to give all participants a head start.
We also created fun, animated checklists as well as short video tutorials for the students. Check an example here.