IGC 2026 News
Totally Guitars launched the International Guitar Camp in 2013. Our home is in the beautiful Santa Cruz Mountains of Northern California at the Green Mountain Retreat, just outside of Los Gatos. The IGC has evolved and improved quite a bit since our first back in 2013 and following is current information for 2026.
We now host two camps yearly, one in the Spring and one in the Fall, with a few significant differences. The Spring IGC is held the last weekend in April, runs Thursday through Sunday (April 23-26, 2026), and is limited to 18 students. The Spring agenda focuses on individual and small group instruction, along with collaborating with other students. One of the three nights is Open Mic Night, where all students are encouraged to play on stage for the group. Another night is Song Circle Night, a less formal way to share and enjoy songs with the group.
The Fall IGC is held the second week in September, runs Monday through Friday (September 14-18, 2026), and is limited to 26 students. The Fall IGC features three Open Mic nights where all students are encouraged to get up and play. No one is required to play at all, but the opportunity is there for everyone to work on their performing skills. We also hold a Performance Workshop the first full day where a few students play something for the group and then get feedback and comments from the staff as to how they could improve on stage.
The Fall camp also includes a welcome BBQ on the Sunday before we start at TG Central for anyone already in town.
Both camps include morning workshops with small group sessions, songwriting and individual instruction in the afternoons, evening sessions with varying emphases, and late-night jams in the historic Pueblo building. There is even some free time to practice, collaborate with others, or just enjoy the beautiful grounds of the Green Mountain Retreat.
There are opportunities to perform in a lower key setting with our Meal Sets. These are 20-minute sets during lunch and dinner, in more of a background music mode while people are eating and talking.
We will have the same fabulous staff of teachers and performers, featuring Dave Nachmanoff, Jim Bruno, Doug Young, Mike Mullins and yours truly.
Our morning sessions will typically start with an hour workshop of mine where we go into things like general theory, guitar geography, ear training, or sometimes just into questions from the group. The next two hours are break-out sessions where small groups of students rotate through three teachers in three 40-minute blocks.
After lunch Dave leads sessions on Songwriting and all of us are available for one-on-one lessons. This daily schedule is pretty much the same for both camps.
As mentioned above, to maximize the IGC experience for everyone we must limit the Spring event to 18 campers and the Fall event to 26. Time is of the essence in registering as both camps fill up quickly, mostly with returning campers, but we always have room to add a few new folks who want to improve their musicianship
Once again, I look forward to reconnecting with many IGC alumni and welcoming others into the IGC Family.
Neil
The Green Mountain Retreat contains a number of historic structures including a few that were relocated from the Tevis Estate in 1909. The Tevis Estate was located on the adjacent property which is now part of the Bear Creek Redwoods Open Space Preserve (Mid-Peninsula Open Space District).
