If you need reminding of how musical talent abounds in Canberra you need look no further than guitarist Matt Withers.

Now head of guitar studies at University of Canberra Music, Withers' professional life doesn't stop there. As well as giving frequent solo performances he's been a member of the ensemble Guitar Trek since 2009 and plays with Bradley Kunda in the Brew Guitar Duo, a partnership the pair founded in 2002.

He doesn't compose but does arrangements and is currently working on one for Guitar Trek. Then there's the managerial role he plays in different areas, work as director of the Canberra Classical Guitar Society, recording and travel.

Exhausting? Apparently not for this young man who exudes energy and enthusiasm.

''It's a fantastic life to be able to travel, perform and teach,'' Withers says. ''I'm organising a Guitar Trek national tour for late 2014. That'll be here in Canberra, to Adelaide, Sydney and maybe to Perth.''

Withers pays great tribute to the founder of Guitar Trek and noted Australian guitarist Tim Kain, with whom he trained at the ANU School of Music for six years. ''He was at the School of Music for 30 years but he's almost more active than ever now, both as a soloist and in the quartet. It's a pleasure to play alongside Tim and playing in Adelaide at the 25th anniversary of Guitar Trek was very exciting.''

For his master's degree at the ANU Withers reported on the process of launching a CD - its recording, advertising and the organisation of a promotional tour - and this expertise is now constantly used as Guitar Trek and the Brew Guitar Duo travel Australia-wide.

He also has skills as a sound technician and as a graphic designer, and is looking to get a course going at UC next year based on the skills necessary for a self-managed musician. ''It's essential for today's musician,'' he says. ''You have to be able to do everything yourself.

''There's a great future at UC with the very supportive vice-chancellor, Stephen Parker,'' Withers says. He works with director of music Rasa Daukus, with Christina Wilson and Alan Hicks in the vocal department and with Thomas Lau, music theory.

''It's a community-based program and not based on elite classical performance. I teach beginner guitar techniques and give private lessons.''

He has major goals in both performance and teaching and wants to take skills to wider audiences and develop the Australian classical guitar scene further.

''Many people are frightened off by classical music,'' he says, ''but I've converted my father, who was a dedicated AC/DC fan, to classical guitar music. He listens to it all the time now.''

During his honours year at the ANU Withers studied the development of the construction of the modern Australian classical guitar. He plays a guitar made by master guitar maker Ian Kneipp, who stopped making instruments about 10 years ago.

''An Australian guitar has a very thin soundboard which vibrates more than those of foreign-made instruments, and its back and sides are thicker so they don't absorb the sound. So it's loud and sustains the sound.''

In 2010 Withers played at the Shanghai World Expo and was featured as a ''Rising Star'' at the Australian Pavilion. Among other awards is a MAMA award as last year's best classical solo/ensemble and a first place gold medal in the Sydney Eisteddfod McDonalds Challenge in 2006.

In 2010 the Brew Duo released Landscape, a CD of Australian guitar duets, packaged in an eye-catching cover featuring Australian panoramas and designed by Withers. Two of the works on the CD, Songs from the Forest by Nigel Westlake and Three Duets by Phillip Houghton were written for Kain, and also included is a work with the amusing title Two Guitars Dine Out: a Musical Degustation, commissioned by the Brew Duo from Richard Charlton. Phillip Scott, in a review for Limelight Magazine wrote: ''This disc is a tribute to the high standard of current Australian music - and a great success for these two accomplished performers.''

Withers also has a CD simply titled Solo and Withers and Kunda join forces in Songs and Dances, recorded in 2009.

On Friday, November 15 at 7.30 Withers will give a solo guitar recital at Wesley Music Centre, Forrest.

''It's the perfect place for a guitar recital,'' he says. ''The acoustic is wonderful.'' He'll play a wide variety of classical guitar favourites mixed with contemporary works.

Included on the program will be Recuerdos de la Alhambra by Francisco Tarrega, an arrangement of which was used in the soundtrack of the movie The Killing Fields. Tarrega is also noted as probably the only composer of an original mobile ringtone - for Nokia.

''I'll also play a work, Phrases, Fragments, Fading Lines, that was written for me by Samuel Smith,'' Withers says.