Brent January

Brent January is a classical guitarist and music teacher from Cape Town, South Africa. He started his classical guitar journey in 2017 (age 19) when he got accepted into the certificate programme in music at Stellenbosch University. This is a bridging course for anyone who has previously not been exposed to classical music education. After the certificate program, he then completed both his bachelor’s and master’s in music at Stellenbosch University. Here he studied guitar under the tutelage of Nina-Fourie Gouws.
In 2020, Brent was selected to take part in the Guitar Foundation of America (GFA) Mentorship Program, where he had the opportunity to study with Grammy-winning guitarist Jason Vieaux. Also, as part of this program he had the opportunity to perform and record a piece that was commissioned for him by the Guitar Foundation of America. This piece is a guitar arrangement of ‘Faceiro’ by Brazilian pianist Chiquinha Gonzaga. During his time at University, Brent played in various ensembles, including the Stellenbosch University Guitar Quartet and Stellenbosch University Big Band. Between 2018-2020 he performed with these ensembles at the prestigious Toyota Stellenbosch Woordfees Arts Festival. Additionally, as an electric guitarist with the New Voice Sextet, he released the album “In Tune with The Infinite” in 2020.
After he graduated from BMus, he taught guitar part-time at The Frank Pietersen Music Centre in Paarl, and Hugo Lambrechts Music Centre in Parow. During this time, he was an active ensemble performer – performing with the Stellenbosch Guitar Quartet at the Classics for All Festival in Greyton, Woordfees Music Festival in Stellenbosch as well as in various concerts throughout Cape Town. Since 2024, Brent has been an active teacher in and around Cape Town. He has taught guitar at Jan Van Riebeeck Primary School in Cape Town and Rhenish Primary School in Stellenbosch. He currently teaches guitar and subject music at Beau Soleil Music Centre. Additionally, he maintains an active career as a soloist, and ensemble player with his acoustic-electric band, thebrentjanuarygroup.
Brent, who is now 27, has been playing guitar for the past decade. He takes part in as many masterclasses and festivals as he can, to improve his musicianship. An example of this was in 2022, where he received a scholarship from his university to take part in the Volterra Project, Summer Guitar Institute. This summer guitar school in Italy is run by the prestigious guitarist Antigoni Goni and was a life changing experience for him. Another recent example is when Brent attended the 50th annual GFA Convention in New York City in June of 2023. He was awarded a place (by audition) in the GFA guitar orchestra, which allowed him to perform Sergio Assad’s The Walls and Ben Verdery’s Scenes From Ellis Island at the convention, held in the Manhattan School of Music. Furthermore, Brent was recently selected to take part in the Guitar Lab’s 2025 online Virtuoso intensive course, where he got to meet and learn from esteemed guitar competition winners such as Marko Topchi and Bokyun Byun.