No pick? No problem. Six-string devotees sojourn in the Austrian Alps for the Acoustic Fingerstyle Bootcamp, a guitar getaway founded by The Herb Alpert School of Music faculty Thomas Leeb and taking place this summer from July 5 to 11. Following the bootcamp is the first-ever UK version, running July 23-27.
Tucked away in the chalet village of Turracher Höhe, the annual retreat has become a haven for fingerstyle guitar enthusiasts of all levels. The bootcamp—now in its 21st iteration—has welcomed players from around the globe, even earning a prominent feature in Australian filmmaker Drew Roller’s documentary Acoustic Uprising (2017).
Billed as “high altitude training for guitarists,” Leeb established the Austrian fingerstyle bootcamp in 2005. At the time, he was playing approximately 100 shows a year, and planned to consolidate his teaching to a single week in the summer. The workshop quickly caught on as Leeb invited fellow guitarists to co-teach, with an instructional roster that has grown into a veritable who’s who of the acoustic fingerstyle world. This year, Leeb is joined by Don Ross, Petteri Sariola, and Randy Lutge.
“You’re isolated on a mountain with other acoustic guitar nerds for a week, there’s plenty of food and drink and you get to hang with world-class instructors,” Leeb told 24700 in a recent email interview. “After a few years, a student came up with the ‘high-altitude bootcamp for acoustic guitar’ label and the bootcamp part stuck.”
Though the camp is thousands of miles away from the Institute, Leeb has been joined by fellow CalArtians over the years. Marcos Mena (Music BFA 20) joined one year as a guest instructor, and fellow Music faculty Miroslav Tadić taught a virtual session in 2020. A teachers’ concert is traditionally held on the Wednesday of the bootcamp week, with the scenic mountain range setting the stage.
This year also marks the inaugural UK version of the bootcamp, co-led with English singer-songwriter Jon Gomm, whom Leeb met when the former was a music student. Joining Leeb and Gomm at the UK program are guitarists Clive Carroll and Stuart Ryan, among others.
“Last year we decided to try to do a UK version of the original Austrian guitar workshop and found the perfect location, a yoga retreat in the Forest of Dean (where Tolkien wrote The Lord of the Rings),” noted Leeb. Though the general structure of the programs are the same, “this is going to be a very English experience where the Austrian one is very Austrian.”
Renowned for his peculiar fingerstyle and percussive techniques, Leeb is a critically acclaimed guitarist and CalArts alum who credits his “sense of timing and groove” to his time studying West African traditional music at the Institute. He has performed at festivals across North and South America, Asia, Africa, and Europe, and his album Desert Pirate (2007) was named an “essential album” by Acoustic Guitar Magazine.
Learn more about the workshop at the official website. (Please note that both 2025 bootcamps are sold out.)
