TOP OF THE HEAP
LAST YEAR WAS notable for a lot of what we didn’t have. There were no 2020 Olympics, no Boston or New York City marathons. Wimbledon was canceled, as was the Masters Tournament. If you were pining for NCAA Women’s March Madness, there was little madness to be had. Hell, even the Scripps National Spelling Bee was called off in 2020, marking the first time the event hasn’t taken place since 1945.
But not even a COVID pandemic could stop Guitar World and Guitar Player’s search for 2020’s Guitarist of the Year, nor did it deter heaps of talented guitarists from responding to the call. In fact, we noticed a dramatic increase in the number of entries we received, and they came from all parts of the world: Japan, Australia, Finland, Switzerland, Italy, France, the US and the UK. If we can draw any conclusions, it’s this: While people’s leisure options were limited in 2020, they clearly spent more time playing the guitar.
The 2020 Guitarist of the Year competition was sponsored by PRS Guitars. As in past years, categories included Electric Guitarist, Acoustic Guitarist, Young Guitarist (age 17 and under) and Bass Guitarist. This year, however, we added a new category — Guitar Teacher of the Year.
Combing through the mountainous number of video entries was no mean feat, and the editors of and spent hours whittling them down to five finalists for each category, assessing the players’ technical and weighed in on the Electric Guitarist entries; and chimed in on the Young Guitarist crew; and and judged the Acoustic Guitarist category. Finally, the Bass Guitarist judges were and . Editors also voted, as did the readers of , who cast thousands of GOTY votes throughout November and December. Meanwhile, based on the glowing (and numerous) video testimonials sent in by students, Mike Papapavlou was chosen as our Guitar Teacher of the Year.
