Local student enjoys challenges of classical guitar

This story was changed to correct the school Ben Jackson will be attending.

Ben Jackson is on his way to a serious course of study in classical guitar this fall at The Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University.

Jackson, 18, began teaching himself to play the instrument at age 6, then started taking lessons at 11 through Southeast Missouri Music Academy, a not-for-profit organization offering comprehensive music instruction to the Cape Girardeau community and surrounding areas.

At the academy, Jackson, of Sikeston, Missouri, was being taught by a student. But that student graduated, so Jackson moved up to study with Patrick Rafferty, an adjunct instructor at Southeast Missouri State University and himself a graduate of The Peabody Conservatory.

During his junior year, Jackson, who is home schooled, said Rafferty told him it would be possible for him to join the university's music program as a dual credit student. Dual credit students earn college credit while still in high school.

Ben Jackson is a dual-credit, high school student studying in the Music Department in the School of Visual and Performing Arts. (Fred Lynch)

"We got the approval of Dr. Jeff Noonan, and there you have it," Jackson said. Noonan teaches music history and literature and applied classical guitar.

Jackson has performed as a soloist in the region and as a member of the Southeast Guitar Ensemble. He also has appeared in master class performances at the Southeast campus and with the St. Louis Classical Guitar Society. He competed last summer in the Guitar Foundation of America's International Youth Competition in Louisville, Kentucky.

Interviewed at the beginning of May, Jackson was deciding between The Peabody Conservatory at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and The Jacobs School of Music. He visited both institutions earlier this year and recently chose the Jacobs School of Music.

He said Southeast has an excellent music program and the instructors he's worked with are top notch, but he felt he needed to move on to continue his studies.

"This is a hard statement because I don't want to sound conceited or anything, but I really wanted to find a place that really challenged me; a place that a lot of good players come out of with real tough teachers, and I think Mr. Rafferty and Dr. Noonan agreed" that his first choices were good ones.

"But this is still a great place," Jackson said.

Rafferty said in an email to the Southeast Missourian that Jackson is not afraid to put effort into his craft.

"There are many factors in a student's development that enable the level of playing exhibited by Ben. In short, he's not afraid to do the work and he has enough focus and skill to see his efforts pay off. He is also very fortunate to have parents that are caring and supportive," Rafferty wrote.

Jackson said his family -- parents Tom and Sheri and sisters Caroline and Catherine -- is "pretty musical," although he's the only one getting formal training. Caroline Jackson sings in the choir at College of the Ozarks in Hollister, Missouri, and Catherine is a nursing student at Southeast.

Jackson chose the guitar because it seems the best way to express himself "totally."

"There are so many different routes that you can go with the guitar," Jackson said. "You can play this style, and this style, and this style ... I also felt like it was probably the most physical of all instruments. There [are] a lot of instruments that you hold, a lot of instruments that you kind of grab onto, but the guitar, it kind of fits really well on the body. It kind of becomes a part of you and I thought that was always attractive about the guitar."

The classical guitar has six strings, but it's different from a regular guitar. "It's a lot lighter," Jackson said, adding it's created with less material and has nylon or crystal nylon strings instead of steel.

Classical guitar, Jackson felt, was more challenging, which he enjoyed.

" ... I felt like it was a real good way for me to progress and I'm really glad that I got into it," he said.

The music Jackson favors are romantic pieces from the late 19th or very early 20th century. "I like a lot of things in there; one person especially would be Agustín Barrios Mangoré -- anything by him. I really like his style. South American music, I think, [is] really inspiring and it's a lot of fun."

His favorite classical guitarists are David Russell and Manuel Barrueco, who teaches at The Peabody.

Tom Jackson's purchase of a classical guitar CD got Ben into the style, though he didn't know what a classical guitar even looked like at the time.

"I think it was just one of those random things that you walk into a store and buy. ... It had a really good variety of different things on it," Ben Jackson said.

After college, and likely graduate school, Jackson would like to teach at the university level. "But I think one ... mission that I'd like to accomplish would be to get a couple classical guitar programs in high schools. ... There are couple of them springing up around. I think Prodigy Leadership Academy does some guitar stuff; Charleston Middle School, I think, is doing some guitar. ... I think would be a real asset to have something like that in a high school or middle school," he said.

rcampbell@semissourian.com

388-3639