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It was a celebration of grit, melody, chops, heart, tone, and charisma...
...tremendous talents: ... Russian guitar virtuosos Sergei Roudzinski...
Sergei Roudzinski flew in from Russia to GH06, and despite being jet lagged, uncorked a musically complicated shred fest
[see magazine photo in picture gallery]
- Guitar Player Magazine, Jan 2007
PRESS RELEASE
For Immediate Release
August 29, 2006
Guitar Player’s Second Annual Guitar Hero Competition
Joe Satriani, Steve Lukather, Ritchie Kotzen, Rockstar: SuperNova’s Rafael Moreira, and Shredmistress Rynata to Judge Contest at San Francisco’s Great American Music Hall
San Mateo, CA—After listening to hundreds of entries posted on SonicBids.com, the staff of Guitar Player has selected the ten finalists who will battle for the title of “Guitar Hero” at the magazine’s Guitar Hero 2006 competition to be held September 23, at the Great American Music Hall in San Francisco. At the conclusion of the event, one player will be crowned as the 2006 Guitar Player Guitar Hero.
This is the second annual Guitar Hero event. The premiere Guitar Hero competition was held last year at Cleveland’s Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on June 10, 2005. The winner of the Guitar Hero '05 title was New York’s Dominic Frasca. First Runner-Up was Rodney VerBrugge of Northern California, and Second Runner-Up was Germany’s Marcus Deml.
“After just two years, Guitar Player’s Guitar Hero competition is already one of the industry’s biggest community-building events for guitarists,” says GP Editor in Chief Michael Molenda. “The concert brings together guitar legends, incredibly talented ‘unknown’ guitarists, and scores of players who aspire to be the next Guitar Player Guitar Hero. It’s a fabulous celebration of the guitar, and one of the most exciting and fun-filled things the Guitar Player staff does all year!”
The ten finalists for Guitar Player’s Guitar Hero '06 Competition are: David Powers (Brewster, New York), Sergei Roudzinski (Russia), Patrick Woods (Winona Lake, Indiana), Joe Cefalu (Boise, Idaho), Ed DeGenaro (Seattle, Washington), Trey Alexander (Lancaster, Pennsylvania), Josh Karickhoff (New York, New York), Anton Tsygankov (St. Peters, Missouri), Ron LoCurto (Kenmore, New York), and Nathan Hahn (Waxahachie, Texas).
The winner of the event will receive a mammoth gear package, including gear provided by the sponsors of the event.
The complete panel of celebrity judges who will pick the winner of Guitar Hero '06 are guitar legend Joe Satriani, session great and Toto axeman Steve Lukather, former Poison and Mr. Big guitarist Ritchie Kotzen, Rockstar:SuperNova house band guitarslinger Rafael Moreira, the fabulous Shredmistress Rynata, and Steve Read of Musician’s Friend.
Guitar Player’s 2006 Guitar Hero competition is proud to be sponsored by Epiphone, First Act, Hughes & Ketner, Mesa Boogie, Musician’s Friend, and Sonicbids.com
Advance tickets for this incredible celebration of guitar are available through the box office at the Great American Music Hall. Or, you can click here and order them online at www.gamh.com
PRESS CONTACT
Laney Erokan
Group Marketing Communications Manager, Music Player Network
lerokan@musicplayer.com
650.513.4397
About Music Player Network
The Music Player Network, a division of CMP Entertainment Media, a division of United Business Media plc, is the world's leading music instrument publishing company and publisher of Guitar Player, Bass Player, Keyboard, and EQ, has a circulation of almost 300,000 loyal readers and has a magazine for nearly every player in the band. The Music Player Network is designing the future for home-based music production, professional project, or commercial studio work. For more information, please go to www.musicplayer.com or www.cmpinformation.com
- Music Player Network
Discography
*** "Shock Therapy", recorded with the band Amok in 1995, collection of 7 songs (Sergei on guitars and vocals) and 2 bonus instrumental tracks. Instrumental track "Spain" was played on Russian radio in late 90's. Album available upon request.
*** "Transformations" - has just been released in 2006. Sergei's first fully instrumental record, 13 compositions including "Spain". Available on www.ebay.com, search under "Roudzinski" (if item is not found, it has just been sold, please check again next day as multiple items can not currently be offered under this ebay account).
Photos
Bio
Sergei was born in January 1964 in Leningrad (now St.Petersburg, Russia). He picked up guitar at the age of four and subsequently made several more attempts to learn the instrument, but he really got interested in guitar playing when he was 16. He started practicing for up to 20 hours a day and within 6 months found himself in his first rock band.
His progress in guitar technique was amazingly fast (due to his talent, his pitch being close to perfect and daily 8 to 16-hour practicing). I met him in 1984 and still remember how he was playing Queen’s “Brighton Rock” on a cheap East German guitar through a home-made distortion box and it sounded just like the record – not only all the notes were there, but the feel, the touch. Many years and bands later Sergei actually opened a show for Brian May’s band in St.Petersburg, Russia in 1999.
Sergei spent lot of time working on his timing and sound-making technique. There were no method books or teachers to learn it from – just a handful of enthusiasts who “discovered” certain things and shared their knowledge with friends. He learned from them, added to it quite a few of his own experience. I was fortunate to learn from him, which changed my own sound and attitude forever.
In 1992-1993 Sergei played with one of Russia’s national acts – Vladimir Rekshan’s “St. Petersburg” and recorded a CD with them. Later he started his successful band Amok where he also doubled as a lead vocalist. They were opening for such national acts as Time Machine (arguably the first Soviet “real” rock group, which stayed underground for 15 years before openly emerging in 1980). Amok won first place on “Nevskoe Rondo 1993” music festival. In 1994 his band had their first radio interview. In spring of 1995 Sergei became one of the five finalists of St.Petersburg guitar competition. His “Spanish Theme” was getting radio play on several local stations in 1995. Two more interviews followed. They toured various Russian cities, played in Germany sometime around 1998. In 1999 they opened for Brian May’s band (they have an amateur video of that show).
Also in 1995 they recorded a CD on 4-track (amazing quality for a home record made without a console) with songs they were playing live at the time. Since 1998 Sergei has been playing in clubs almost every night and doing session work for various singers, musicians and composers. Unfortunately, he does not get to play the music he likes, including his own original instrumentals, only cover tunes with little or no soloing.
Sergei has been chosen as one of the ten finalists for the Guitar Player Magazine Guitar Hero 2006 competition, that took place in the Great American Music Hall, San-Francisco, CA, on September 23, 2006.
Sergei tried musical colleges at least twice (that I know of) but got bored very fast. He knows theory, reads and transcribes. His influences (among many) include Ritchie Blackmore, Steve Vai, John McLaughlin, Al DiMeola, Wes Montgomery, Django Reinhardt and Paco de Lucia. He has been writing music for more than 20 years and claims to currently have over 10 hours worth of useable guitar instrumental material (ranging from well-shaped ideas to fully arranged pieces).
He finally managed to record some of it at home (almost losing it all due to crashed hard disk which was later partially restored). Unfortunately he can not afford to record professionally, and in Russia there are virtually no good sound engineers anyway. He never could find a drummer with sense of time good enough to match his own, so he had to resort to drum machines. On his recent recordings he also plays bass and a inexpensive guitar MIDI-synthesizer.
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