All-State Guitar Advocacy: Virtual Summit

All-State Guitar Advocacy

Virtual Summit

January 26, 2026 at 8PM ET

Presented by the NAfME Council for Guitar Education and the Guitar Foundation of America

Guitar education is on the rise and with it a need for higher level performance opportunities for students. Ten state MEAs currently hold All-State events: Arizona, Florida, Kentucky, Louisiana, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Rhode Island, South Carolina, and Virginia. Will your state’s MEA be next?

This All-State Guitar Advocacy Summit will address the benefits (“The Why”) of adding Guitar All-State to your state’s MEA programs and share several models based on the existing ten (“The How To”).

Target Audience: MEA Executives & Officers, Fine Arts Administrators, Guitar Educators, Past/Current All-State Conductors, Parents/Guardians of guitar students and all who have interest in the growth of guitar education nation-wide.

Featured Panelists:

Dr. Martha Masters, Moderator

Internationally renowned classical guitarist, educator, conductor, and arts advocate Martha Masters has built a career distinguished by artistic excellence and bold leadership in the field of guitar education. As President of the Guitar Foundation of America (GFA), she has become a prominent national voice for expanding guitar programs in public schools and advancing equitable access to high-quality music education.

Dr. Masters’s work as a conductor is grounded in formal training—she minored in instrumental conducting during her doctoral studies in guitar performance at the University of Southern California—and enriched by more than two decades of international experience. Her conducting profile includes leading All-State Guitar Orchestras in New Mexico, Virginia, and Florida, as well as co-conducting and helping launch Arizona’s All-State Guitar Ensemble debut in 2025. Dr. Masters is also the Director of Arizona State University’s highly regarded Guitar Orchestra, where she prepares future leaders in guitar education by mentoring doctoral students in conducting high-quality ensembles. Undergraduate music education majors likewise gain firsthand experience with the artistic and pedagogical excellence possible in a well-run guitar orchestra. She has also been invited to conduct ensembles at festivals around the world, reflecting her unique combination of artistic perspective, pedagogical insight, and administrative leadership. 

Dr. Masters first gained international recognition in 2000 when she won first prize in the GFA International Concert Artist Competition, the Andrés Segovia International Competition in Linares, Spain, and was named a finalist in the Alexandre Tansman International Competition of Musical Personalities in Poland. Since then she has enjoyed an active career as a soloist, chamber musician, and concerto performer, appearing across the United States, Europe, Russia, China, and Australia. 

She holds Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from the Peabody Conservatory, where she studied with Manuel Barrueco, and earned her Doctor of Musical Arts at USC as a student of Scott Tennant. Masters has released seven recordings (Naxos, GSP, and independent releases) and authored three books with Mel Bay Publications and Alfred Music.

For more information, visit www.marthamasters.com.

John Truitt, Organizer of the first All-State Guitar Program, NMMEA

John Truitt, passionate advocate for music in the lives of young people,  has given 50 years of service to the schools in Albuquerque, New Mexico.  He has taught at all levels, K-college, and helped to establish and develop the band and guitar programs at Albuquerque Academy in the 1970’s.    Mr. Truitt has studied flamenco guitar and accompanying in Spain and has performed with many famous artists, including Eva Encinias, Joaquin Encinias, El Pelete, Maria Benitez, Pedro Cortez, Pablo Rodarte, Jose Greco, La Tati, Daniel Ward, Luis Campos and Lili del Castillo.  He retired as guitar instructor and Director of Bands at Albuquerque Academy in 2011, was chair of the Council for Guitar Education of NAfME, a past member of the Pre-College Guitar Education Committee of the Guitar Foundation of America, and former Vice President of the Guitar Division for the New Mexico Music Educators Association. In 2010, Mr. Truitt, along with his Academy colleague Mickey Jones and the guitar directors from seven other schools, spearheaded the effort to begin the inclusion of guitar ensemble in the annual New Mexico All-State Music Festival, the first state in the nation to do so. He directed the New Mexico All-State guitar ensemble in 2019.  He is the recipient of the New Mexico Symphony Orchestra Teacher of the Year award for 1994, The Presidential Teacher Award from New Mexico for 2008, both the Gage and Slevin Awards for excellence in teaching from Albuquerque Academy, and was inducted into the New Mexico Jazz Workshop Hall of Fame in June of 2011. He was inducted into the New Mexico Music Hall of fame in 2022, and was awarded the Robb Foundation Award in 2023.  He has adjudicated and directed many festivals, and is the composer of more than 30 works for guitar ensemble.  He was blessed with loving and supportive parents,  and also blessed with his wife of 49 years, Holly.  He has two children, airline pilot Lee, and Scandanavian historian Jacquelyn. Be sure to ask him about his three grandchildren, Grant 14, Grady 9, and Gibson, 3.

Dr. Skip Pardee, FMEA, President

Dr. Pardee serves as the District Coordinator of Fine Arts for Collier County Public Schools, overseeing music, visual arts, theatre, and dance in grades K-12. He received his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in music education from the

University of Florida and his Doctorate of Education from the Florida Gulf Coast University, with a research focus on Teacher Evaluation in the Arts. Before his district-level appointment, he served as a music educator in Lee and Collier Counties. Mr. Pardee is a past president of the Florida Music Supervision Association and an active performer, clinician, and professional development leader throughout Florida. Dr. Pardee serves as the president for FMEA.

Jan Marie Endo, All-State Participant as a Student and Now an Educator

Jan Marie Endo is the Guitar Director at Potomac Falls High School and an active performer and educator in the greater Loudoun County area. A graduate of Shenandoah University with a Bachelor of Music in Music Education and a Performance Certificate in Classical Guitar, she has over a decade of teaching experience and has led multiple collegiate music education organizations – President of CoVMEA and president to both the NAfME and ASTA chapters at Shenandoah Conservatory.

Mrs. Endo has performed on international stages, including a tour with the United States Guitar Orchestra beginning at Carnegie Hall and concluding in France. She is also an award-winning competitor, earning top prizes in several regional guitar competitions. As an educator, she is dedicated to helping students build confidence, creativity, and a lifelong appreciation for music.

Ember Larson, Guitar Educator for the First Arizona All-State 2025

Ember Larson is a musician and music educator living in Chino Valley, Arizona. Ember received a BA in Humanities/Music from Prescott College in 2011. She received her Masters Degree in Music Education through Arizona State University in 2019. Ember has been teaching music in the Humboldt Unified School District since 2016. This is her sixth year teaching choir and guitar at Bradshaw Mountain High School in Prescott Valley, AZ.

Dr. Kevin Vigil, Chair – NAfME Council for Guitar Education

Dr. Kevin Vigil (Dr. V) holds degrees from Shenandoah University (DMA), Yale University, (MM) and the University of Memphis (BM). He joined the faculty of Heritage High School in 2005-06. He was named the 2014 Shenandoah University Teacher of the Year for LCPS and presented with a Sir Winston Churchill Commemorative Crown by Churchill Fellow Helen Sanderson for his work in guitar education (2017). In 2020, Dr. V was chosen as the Joan C. Edwards Distinguished Professor in the Arts at Marshall University. 

Dr. V’s articles have been published in several national and international music magazines/ journals. He has presented lectures for the Guitar Foundation of America (GFA), the Philadelphia Guitar Society, VMEA, NAfME and Yale, James Madison, Marshall, and Shenandoah Universities. He is nationally sought-after as a clinician, adjudicator and guest conductor.

Several of his instruction videos are featured on GFAtv (Episodes 14, 15, 18. 21, 23, 26, 28, 30 & 32). 

Dr. V currently serves as vice-president for the Virginia Guitar Directors Association, and Chair for the NAfME Council for Guitar Education.

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The views expressed are those of the presenter; they do not necessarily reflect the views of NAfME.