5 Women and the Classical Guitar : Plans for an all-female series have jelled in concerts that start Saturday at CSUN, which has held them on an annual basis since 1983.

As a female classical guitarist in the early 20th Century, Vahdah Olcott Bickford was already a pioneer. By the time she settled in Hollywood in the 1920s, the young musician was well into a career as a renowned soloist on the national scene.

Bickford had also begun amassing what would become this country’s largest collection of sheet music for the guitar. “She really brought the guitar to the fore here in the U. S. well before Segovia started playing here,” says Gregory Newton, adjunct professor of guitar at Cal State Northridge, who was among Bickford’s final students before her death in 1980. “She was the grand lady of the guitar for the first half of this century.”

So it’s perhaps fitting that a series of five concerts by women guitarists will mark the 70th anniversary of Bickford’s most lasting contribution: her creation of the American Guitar Society in 1923. The “Women and the Guitar” concert series begins Saturday evening at CSUN with a performance by Mary Akerman.

The American Guitar Society, a monthly gathering of players, students and fans, stands as the world’s oldest functioning group of its kind, Newton contends. The society has met the first Saturday of every month continually since its inception, interrupted only twice, at the deaths of Presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy. Since the late 1970s, the society has been based at CSUN’s music department. It has organized concert series annually since 1983.

“We’ve been rolling around the idea of having an all-female series for a few years, and it just all jelled this season,” says Newton, who is on the society’s board of directors.

Akerman, who teaches classical guitar at Kennesaw State College near Atlanta, suggests that the classical guitar field may still remain predominantly male. But, she adds: “I don’t think there’s any sexism in that. It’s just that a lot of guys have been interested in it and have become good players.

“I don’t necessarily feel I’m carrying the banner for women players. It’s just that one wants to be a good player.”

New knowledge of guitar technique and muscular efficiency has been dramatic enough over the last decade to make differences between male and female players insignificant, she says. “There’s not so many players sort of muscling their way through, and there are more people with elegant technique. If you have the right kind of teacher, I think this helps the woman player.”

Akerman discovered the classical guitar as a 12-year-old, when her father--an amateur musician whose tastes lean toward big band jazz--brought home an Andres Segovia album after seeing and hearing the Spanish master on “The Ed Sullivan Show.” It had “flashy Spanish pieces on it that are so beloved by guitarists when they first start out,” Akerman remembers.

Now 37, Akerman has since won several playing awards, including the Guitar Foundation of America competition in 1985. On Saturday, she will perform works by Bach, Mauro Giuliani, brothers Regino and Eduardo Sainz de la Maza, Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco and others.

Next in the fall concert series will be Lily Afshar, who teaches guitar at Memphis State University and performs at CSUN on Nov. 13. The Washington Post described the Iranian-born guitarist as displaying “remarkable consistency in terms of musicality, finesse and thoughtfulness.”

On Feb. 26, guitarist Nicola Hall performs. “She is a spectacular young guitarist out of England,” Newton says of the 24-year-old Decca recording artist. “This is part of her first U. S. tour, and her concert for us will be her West Coast debut. She’s like a Paganini. She’s just amazing.”

Also scheduled to perform is Tina Karen Lo of Hong Kong, appearing March 12. Ending the series April 9 will be Eleftheria Kotzia, who will probably include compositions from her homeland of Greece. Although sheet music of the Greek composers is readily available, Newton says, it’s a repertoire “you don’t hear very often in concert.”

WHERE AND WHEN

Who: Mary Akerman, performing the first concert of the “Women and the Guitar” series.

Location: Recital Hall, Music Building, Cal State Northridge, 18111 Nordhoff St.

When: 8 p.m. Saturday.

Price: $12 for the concert, $48 for the complete five-concert series.

Call: (818) 885-2488.