The Brownsville Guitar Festival & Ensemble Competition is a bona-fide academic program, well known and respected worldwide by classical guitar players, teachers, students and aficionados alike. It is the largest event of its kind in the USA.

The festival was originally conceived in 2002 by Festival Director, current BSPA Vice President and classical guitar master, Dr. Michael Quantz DMA. He is Professor and Director of Guitar Studies at the UTB Department of Music and winner of the prestigious University of Texas Regent's Outstanding Teaching Award. He is considered a national leader in the field of classical guitar ensemble education and competition.

Festival activities take place at the UTB/TSC Arts Center, a spectacular, state of the arts, acoustically perfect music hall and usually hosts from 30 to 50 middle, high school and university classical guitar ensembles visiting from throughout the USA and Mexico who take part in master classes, clinics and celebrity-judged guitar ensemble competitions

The festival weekend culminates in a grand concert performance by headline artists and results of the competitions are announced.

The 11th Annual Brownsville Guitar Festival & Ensemble Competition took place in March of 2012 and featured the Los Angeles Guitar Quartet, often considered the premier classical guitar ensemble in the United States. In April of 2011, the 10th Annual Festival featured, for the second time, the multiple Grammy winning classical guitar legends, Los Romeros.

Featured performers of past Festivals have included Adam del Monte, Paul Galbraith, Adam Holzman, Ruben Romero, the Texas Guitar Quartet, Duo Melis, the Tantalus Quartet, Leo Kotke, Martha Masters, Risa Carlson, Ana Vidović, Jose Feliciano, Mathew Hinsley, Shingo Fujii, and of course, Los Romeros and the Los Angeles Guitar Quartet (LAGQ.

Really superb stuff, no doubt, to have such classical guitar luminaries not only perform in public, but also participate in judging ensemble competitions, putting on master classes, guitar clinics and personally engaging guitar students and faculty, answering their questions and freely offering their invaluable advice.

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