OUR STORY
Founded in 2025 by Oregonian virtuoso classical guitarist, composer, and Artistic Director, Tye Austin, M.M., Wilder Frets: Classical Guitar in the Wilderness is a fiscally sponsored concert series of Fractured Atlas, a 501(c)(3) non-profit arts service organization, that replaces the traditional concert hall with breathtaking wilderness landscapes across the Pacific Northwest. We create immersive outdoor experiences where music, community, and the natural environment meet—inviting audiences to slow down, listen deeply, and reconnect with nature. By combining artistic excellence with ecological responsibility and universal accessibility, Wilder Frets expands access to high-quality classical music concerts while fostering environmental awareness, mental well-being, and meaningful cultural gatherings in the great outdoors.
The project was sparked by a moment of global disruption and creative resolve. When the COVID-19 pandemic brought live music to a standstill in 2020, Artistic Director Tye Austin chose not to wait for concert halls to re-open. Instead, he turned to the forests, rivers, beaches, deserts, and other wilderness landscapes of his home state of Oregon—spaces that offered both refuge and a natural stage for artistic expression. What began as a practical response to crisis quickly evolved into a bold vision: a resilient, artist-centered concert model capable of thriving beyond traditional venues while reconnecting people to nature, culture, and one another.
Wilder Frets is also inspired by a deeper historical legacy. In studying how the arts have persisted through periods of profound upheaval, Tye found inspiration in the Works Progress Administration’s Federal Music and Theatre Projects, which sustained artists and provided free public concerts and theatrical performances—often outdoors—to communities across the United States during the Great Depression, as Americans were still recovering from the 1919 Spanish Flu pandemic. That spirit of cultural resilience and public access to the arts continues to guide Wilder Frets today. We are committed to fair compensation for artists, commissioning new works inspired by nature, and offering free and/or subsidized concerts, masterclasses, and music education opportunities through our Arts Access Tickets Program and Free Frets Initiative.
At its core, Wilder Frets is about redefining where music belongs and who it is for. By bringing the classical guitar into the wilderness and welcoming diverse audiences—families, rural communities, tribal nations, and first-time concertgoers alike—we reimagine the concert experience as a shared act of listening, learning, and stewardship. Wilder Frets brings classical guitar, humanity, and culture back into harmony with nature.
Arts Access Tickets Program
Standing on the shoulders of the WPA’s legacy, Wilder Frets’ Arts Access Tickets program offers free and subsidized tickets to concerts and events, prioritizing at-risk youth, orphans, foster families, single-parent households, SNAP recipients, and historically underserved communities. By pairing accessible performances with outdoor pre-concert masterclasses led by Tye Austin and guest artists, Arts Access Tickets create meaningful entry points into world-class music experiences while honoring Wilder Frets’ commitment to fair artist compensation and public cultural enrichment. During our inaugural concert season, we are committed to distributing a minimum of 25,000 free Arts Access Tickets, expanding access to live classical music like never before.
Free Frets Initiative
The Free Frets Initiative is Wilder Frets’ long-term commitment to free, world-class music education for underserved youth across the Pacific Northwest. Through this program, students receive instruments, weekly lessons, mentorship, and performance opportunities at no cost. Free Frets provides a clear pathway from first musical exposure to sustained artistic growth through masterclasses, intensive training, and full-ride scholarships to Wilder Frets’ two-week summer music intensive at rotating wilderness retreats. Delivered in partnership with community organizations, tribal groups, and after-school music programs, Free Frets blends music education with nature-based learning to foster creativity, confidence, and lifelong artistic development. Our goal for the 2026 concert season is to gift a minimum of 100 classical guitars, empowering the next generation of aspiring virtuosi.
The Wilder Sound: Innovation & Design
In order to address the distinctive acoustic demands of performing open-air concerts in the wilderness, Wilder Frets uses state-of-the-art wireless headphones and subtle amplification to deliver concert hall–quality sound and acoustics that blends seamlessly with the natural environment. Audiences can wander through forests, lie in sunlit meadows, or explore hidden glens while the music becomes a living soundtrack to their surroundings. This innovative approach creates performances that are both intimate and expansive, allowing the landscape itself to carry the sound, while ensuring accessibility for those with hearing sensitivities. By eliminating intrusive amplification and protecting fragile ecosystems, Wilder Frets combines artistic excellence with environmental stewardship, redefining how music can be experienced in nature.
Wilder Media: Audio & Video Production
Beyond the intimate energy of our live performances, we aim to preserve and share the unique magic of these wilderness concerts with audiences world-wide. Each note played among old-growth trees and under open skies will be captured through high-quality live streams, bringing the immersive experience directly to viewers no matter where they are. In addition, carefully crafted album recordings and cinematic music videos will allow listeners to revisit the serene beauty and raw emotion of these performances again and again. By blending the artistry of the classical guitar with the untamed ambiance of the natural world, we hope to create a musical journey that resonates far beyond the forest, inviting audiences around the globe to experience the classical guitar as they’ve never heard it before.
Headlining Artist Biography
Tye Austin, M.M. — Classical Guitar Virtuoso & Artistic Director
Hailed by NBC News for making “the guitar sing like it was invented only to be in his hands,” Oregonian classical guitarist, composer, and Artistic Director Tye Austin is the principal headliner of all Wilder Frets performances. An internationally recognized virtuoso, he has appeared at Carnegie Hall, London’s Royal Albert Hall, the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, and concert halls around the world. His career highlights include performances for 300 world leaders at the United Nations, a private concert for the former Australian Prime Minister and delegates at Trump World Tower, and a music performance and education residency at The iSchool of Music in Shanghai, China before joining Royal Caribbean International as principal classical guitarist in 2020.
Descending from Franco-Spanish pirates of the Caribbean, Austin is known for his expressive versatility, performing repertoire from Spain, Portugal, France, the Caribbean Islands, and the Americas—including classical, flamenco, fado, chanson, tango, salsa, samba, bossa nova, choro, reggae, jazz, and his own original compositions. He also sings in English, Spanish, French, Italian, and Portuguese, and collaborates regularly with orchestras, chamber ensembles, and string quartets nationwide.
A celebrated composer, Austin has received multiple commissions, including a 2017 collaboration with the United States French Embassy for the Netflix series Versailles. In 2019, Classical Guitar Magazine named him one of the world’s top 10 composers for guitar chamber music. His music seeks to “glorify God and refresh the human soul.”
Austin discovered guitar at age 16 after a life-changing Spanish guitar concert and has since built a career rooted in passion, resilience, and artistic authenticity. He holds a Master of Music from the New England Conservatory under the tutelage of Eliot Fisk. He has studied in masterclasses with Grammy winners Sharon Isbin, Jason Vieaux, and Scott Tennant, and completed additional training at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Granada, Spain.
He performs on a custom 2024 Maxwell T. Sipe guitar, built exclusively for him from ten sustainably harvested tree species native to Oregon, and is sponsored by Savage Classical Guitar Strings, Sagework Guitar Supports, and Sipe Guitars.
Austin is currently preparing his debut album, Iberia: Spanish Guitar Music, to be recorded at Pyrophorus Studios in Barcelona, Spain in 2026. In his spare time, he can be found snowboarding, surfing, fly-fishing, foraging, and unwinding in the natural hot springs of the Pacific Northwest.
For bookings, lessons, or donation inquiries: info@tyeaustin.com
Emerging Artist Residency
The Emerging Artist Residency is a core component of Wilder Frets—where the classical guitar becomes a bridge between artists, audiences, and the natural world. Every chamber music performance is thoughtfully designed around the guitar’s extraordinary expressive range, allowing it to lead and support a variety of chamber music ensembles within immersive outdoor environments shaped by forest canopies, canyon walls, coastal air, and mountain meadows.
Under the artistic leadership of Tye Austin, Wilder Frets collaborates with a diverse cohort of emerging and early-career musicians—classical guitarists, violinists, cellists, harpists, marimbists, percussionists, bassists, and string quartets—offering them meaningful, fairly compensated performance opportunities outside the constraints of traditional concert halls.
Programming spans centuries and continents, weaving together elegant baroque and classical repertoire, atmospheric and contemplative soundscapes, vibrant Latin and world music traditions, and bold cross-genre collaborations that reflect the lived experiences of today’s artists. These concerts invite audiences into a shared listening experience that feels both timeless and contemporary—where chamber music unfolds in dialogue with wind, water, birdsong, and the landscape itself.
By uplifting emerging artists and placing the classical guitar at the heart of innovative chamber music settings, this series cultivates the next generation of performers while reimagining chamber music as something both intimate and expansive—refined yet boldly adventurous, steeped in tradition yet alive in the present moment.
Celebrity Guest Artist Series
In addition to championing emerging and regional artists, Wilder Frets will present a Celebrity Guest Artist Series that brings some of the world’s most celebrated musicians into intimate wilderness settings. Each season, Artistic Director Tye Austin will collaborate in chamber music performances with a carefully curated selection of internationally renowned artists—transforming forests, coastlines, and mountain landscapes into once-in-a-lifetime concert experiences.
Potential collaborators include globally recognized artists such as Yo-Yo Ma, Renée Fleming, Ray Chen, Joshua Bell, HAUSER, Teddy Abrams, Sharon Isbin, Eliot Fisk, Jason Vieaux, David Russell, Miloš Karadaglić, Ana Vidović, Manuel Barrueco, Ben Verdery, Marcin Dylla, Grisha Goryachev, Thibaut Garcia, Rosie Bennet, Alexandra Whittingham among others. These artists are not approached as distant celebrities, but as colleagues and collaborators—many of whom Tye Austin knows personally through decades of professional performance, study, and international touring.
The intention of the series is not spectacle, but artistic intimacy at the highest level: world-class musicians performing side-by-side, centered around the classical guitar, in environments that inspire deep listening and human connection. These collaborations elevate the artistic profile of Wilder Frets while drawing new audiences to classical music, conservation, and outdoor cultural experiences. Programs range from refined chamber music collaborations to large-scale concerto performances, including guitar concerti with the Wilder Frets Symphony Orchestra, which intends to feature members from the Oregon Symphony, Portland Ballet Orchestra, and other premier ensembles across the Pacific Northwest.
Wilder Frets regularly features iconic works such as Rodrigo’s Concierto de Aranjuez, concerti by Vivaldi, Villa-Lobos, Castelnuovo-Tedesco, Giuliani, and Carulli, alongside Austin’s own Oregon Guitar Concerto. These performances elevate the classical guitar to its full orchestral voice while remaining rooted in the natural world.
Select performances from the Celebrity Guest Artist Series will be professionally live-streamed and recorded, extending their impact far beyond the concert site and allowing a global audience to witness rare collaborations that cannot happen anywhere else. This series positions Wilder Frets as both a cultural destination and a platform where the world’s greatest artists come together in service of music, nature, and community.
