International Guitar Festival Aarhus was founded in 2001 by the classical guitarist Peter Strömgren.

The purpose of the festival is to bring the pleasure of music to both conaisseurs and newcomers by presenting the best classical guitarists and ensembles in a series of concerts in a beautiful venue, where it is a pleasure to be. This venue is "Helsingør Theater" in "Den Gamle By" (The Museum City "The Old town") in the city of Aarhus (Denmark). The theater is from 1817, loaded with history and a unique estetic joyful experience in its own right.

The festival, which in October 2009 was held in its 8th edition has had some of the finest musicians from the planet to perform and teach.

The classical guitar is just a tiny corner of the classical music, which in it self is just a tiny corner of the music culture. A small, but wonderful corner, to which only few people have but a superficial knowledge if at all. These small corners of cultural life are having a still harder time surviving while superficial and glittery musical cultures gain territory and dominate the medias.

The genuine live concert, where you can hear real, live, fallible artists who have worked hard all their life to achieve the highest artistic perfection and in this way reach the heart of the audience, is a threatened kind of entertainment.
 
On the contrary, TV shows with perfectly looking "stars" who attain instant fame without having the slightest artistical integrity, and whose star status for obvious reasons evaporates as quickly as is came, are rising steadily and contribute to the blurring of good taste and the understanding the inexaustible depths of art music.

But, as with connected glasses, after superficiality often come initiatives that strengthen quality and human presence.

International Guitar Festival Aarhus would like to be considered such an initiative.

 "Helsingør Theater"
as seen from the stage