Repeatedly ranked as PATV’s most widely viewed program, Tom's Guitar Show attracts audiences of diverse perspectives in the Iowa City, Coralville and Tiffin viewing areas where Tom is known as its witty, genial, and knowledgeable host.
Through more than a decade of programming Tom's Guitar Show has evolved and gained success as an interactive forum predominantly about guitars, but also—as one of PATV’s live cablecasts—a model of the participatory democratic process at the core of public access.
The content of the show develops spontaneously through viewer participation usually along themes of musical requests, cultural commentary and casual conversation, and serves as an outlet for local expression in a media world dominated by corporate interests.
Tom’s Guitar Show is staffed by a dedicated and skilled volunteer crew including:
- Producer/Host: Tom Nothnagle
- Director: Jim Skopinski
- Floor Manager/Cameras: Bob Wiley
- Audio, Graphics & "Boss": Phil Phillips
- Cameras: PATV Studio Interns & Volunteers
With additional logistical and technical support from PATV-18:
- Executive Director: Josh Goding
- Technical Assistance: PATV Staff
About the Host
Host Tom Nothnagle, a.k.a. Guitar Tom, is accomplished in a broad range of genres and numerous instruments including flamenco, 10-string, 12-string, bass guitar, banjo and mandolin.
As a lifelong multi-instrumentalist and a professional musician for more than three decades, Nothnagle continues to create genre-bending improvisations and compositions solidly rooted in classical guitar technique. His training is as varied as his musical approach and includes the San Francisco Conservatory and Wisconsin Conservatory of Music led by, and among others, Benjamin Verdery, John Hoffman, Michael Lorimer and Pierre Bensusan.
Prior to his decade-long run as producer and host of Tom's Guitar Show, Nothnagle composed and performed the score for a play written by and starring Thomas G. Waites and produced by Barry Kemp. He has provided voice-overs, scores and acting performances for numerous documentaries, commercials and public service announcements for radio and television.
As a native Iowan Nothnagle has served since 1990 as Artist-in-Residence for the Iowa Arts Council offering cultural and historical music demonstrations including flamenco guitar, fingerstyle banjo, Renaissance, and Baroque mandolin, and antique parlor guitar period pieces for arts festivals, corporate events and benefit concerts, musical scores and accompaniment for ballet, flamenco and modern dance concerts. For more than a decade, he and Deanne Wortman, an Iowa City area intermedia artist, offered their Wortman & Nothnagle Musical Storytelling to libraries, schools, and art museums throughout the region. With Raymudo Rosales, Nothnagle became the instrumental half of Raymundo y Tomás, a duo that still occasionally serenades eastern Iowa with traditional Latin rhythms.
Nothnagle also has performed as guest soloist at over fifty classical concerts throughout the central Midwest including the Southeast Iowa Symphony, Eastern Iowa Classical Guitar Society, Grinnell College, Cornell College, Luther College, Coe College, Monmouth College, University of Iowa, Drake University, University of Northern Iowa, and University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. In 1988 Nothnagle won the All-Iowa Heavyweight Guitar Championship.
His professional breadth includes: over 1,000 performances in clubs, coffeehouses, concerts and conferences throughout the upper Midwest, and in California, Oregon, Boston, Manhattan and Paris; product demonstration for varied manufacturers including for Martin’s $35,000 “Tree of Life” guitar; founder and former owner of The Guitar Gallery; and owner of an extensive personal collection including a Mattingly, Lowden and custom-built Sahlin 10-string guitar.
A consummate musician, Nothnagle is still growing as an artist and continually welcomes new opportunities to extend his knowledge base and experience. For Tom guitar represents a life of the mind and (as Manuel Barrueco put it) not such a bad view of the world.