Landers will play Jan. 31

For Zec Landers, it’s all about paying back.
“When I was in the MusicWorks program (at Arts Place), I received scholarships to go there,” he said this week. “I basically wanted to give back to the program that got me started.”
Landers, son of Shar Landers and the late Steve Landers, will perform a benefit concert at 7:30 p.m. Jan. 31 at Hall-Moser Theatre at Arts Place in Portland.
Majoring in classical guitar performance at Indiana University, Landers plans to graduate in May of 2016. He would like to attend law school after receiving his undergraduate degree.
He started with the MusicWorks program at Arts Place about 2007 and his original intent was to learn how to play the electric guitar.
“I had a friend who was obsessed with Led Zeppelin,” he recalled. “I was really influenced by Jimmy Page at first.”
But his instructor, Andy Dowling, was a classical guitarist. And when Landers encountered that often haunting music on the acoustic guitar, he was soon hooked.
IU’s top-notch classical guitar faculty at Jacobs School of Music drew him to Bloomington after graduation from Jay County High School in 2012.
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“Then I really got into Segovia,” he said of the Spanish classical guitarist who died in 1987.
The all-acoustic benefit concert for MusicWorks will be “very varied in styles,” said Landers. “There will be some Spanish music. I’m playing some South American music and also some classical music.”
Landers has performed several studio recitals and one major solo recital.
Tickets for the concert will be $8 for adults and $5 for students. They are available at Arts Place, 131 E. Walnut St., Portland, or by phone at (260) 726-4809.
MusicWorks provides individual lessons for children and adults in guitar, trumpet, saxophone, violin, viola, French horn, percussion, cello, flute, voice, harp, piano, electric guitar, recorder, clarinet, trombone, and tuba.
The program also directs a number of ensembles, including Eastern Breeze Flute Ensemble, Distant Thunder Percussion Ensemble, and the Stateline Singers.
Major funding for MusicWorks is provided by The George and Frances Ball Foundation. Funding is provided in part by the Indiana Arts Commission, The Portland Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts.