Wilder Frets: Classical Guitar in the Wilderness (Harris Beach State Park)

About Wilder Frets:

For the inaugural season, Wilder Frets: Classical Guitar in the Wilderness will tour across the state of Oregon from August 1–October 1, 2026. Led by classical guitar virtuoso and artistic director Tye Austin, the series replaces the traditional concert hall with immersive wilderness landscapes—including state parks, farms, ranches, wineries, hot spring resorts, and other unique locations throughout the state. Audiences experience each performance through wireless headphone technology, allowing them to move freely and explore the surrounding landscape within a quarter-mile radius as the music accompanies their wanderings through each Wilder setting.

About this Site:

Harris Beach State Park is located along Oregon’s rugged southern coastline, where the Pacific Ocean meets a dramatic shoreline of sea stacks, rocky headlands, and wide sandy beaches shaped by constant wave action and coastal winds. Just offshore, towering rock formations rise from the surf as remnants of coastal uplift and erosion along the active edge of the Cascadia Subduction Zone, where tectonic forces have gradually lifted marine terraces while the ocean continues to carve the cliffs below. The park lies within a rich coastal ecosystem where tidepools support anemones, mussels, and sea stars, and offshore islands provide nesting habitat for seabirds and marine life. Fog often drifts in from the Pacific, softening the horizon and sustaining the Sitka spruce and coastal pine forests that frame the shore. For thousands of years, this coastline has been home to the Tolowa Dee-ni’ and other Indigenous peoples, who maintained deep cultural and subsistence ties to the sea through fishing, shellfish gathering, and seasonal coastal living. Today, Harris Beach State Park remains a place where beach lovers can enjoy sweeping ocean views and iconic sunsets.

About the Artist:

Oregon-born classical guitarist and composer Tye Austin, M.M., is the Artistic Director of Wilder Frets, a concert series that brings world-class classical guitar performances into natural wilderness settings. With ancestral ties to Franco-Spanish pirates of the Caribbean, he draws on a deep cultural connection to Spanish and Latin American repertoire, shaping his interpretations with distinctive authenticity and depth. Praised by NBC News for making “the guitar sing like it was invented only to be in his hands,” Austin is an internationally recognized virtuoso guitarist whose career includes appearances at venues such as Carnegie Hall and Royal Albert Hall, performances for global leaders at the United Nations, and international residencies and tours across Asia, Europe, and the Americas. He was also hired as the principal classical guitarist for Royal Caribbean International cruise lines. He holds a Master of Music from the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston. In his spare time, he can be found surfing, fly-fishing, foraging, or skinny-dipping in geo-thermal hot springs.