My history with the guitar goes back to the very beginnings of my formal musical training as a youngster. It was not only my first instrument, but it was the one on which I learned to read music. Even though I eventually went on to study piano, violin and viola, the guitar and its fretboard have remained completely hard-wired in my brain, as it were, in much the same way as one's original language would be. Alas! if only the fingers these days could keep up... Despite this, I didn't get around to seriously writing guitar music until 1994 with the composition of my Suite for Two Guitars. Also for two guitars is Spanish Dance from the same year.In 1996, inspired by my internet friendship with a young guitarist, Andrew Shepard-Smith (then Master of Music candidate at the Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music under the tutelage of Clare Callahan) I composed Three Preludes for Guitar. The following year I composed Variations on an Original Theme in Folk Style (fifteen) for him. This remarkable young man is now Dr. Andrew Shepard-Smith, Professor of Guitar at Huntington College in Indiana.
NEW: Twelve Bagatelles for Guitar, 2004. Firmly planted stylistically in the nineteenth-century, these pieces will remind some of composers such as Fernando Sor, Mauro Giuliani, and Matteo Carcassi. They are not at all technically difficult, yet will offer a decent challenge to intermediate players looking for fresh material to survey. You can find sample scores and full audio realizations (mp3) below.
NEW: Recordings of the expanded versions of "Twelve Bagatelles for Guitar" with String Quartet.
JUST ADDED: Recordings of "Nine Rags for Three Guitars." These rags are arrangements of my piano rags in classic style.
For more information about this music or to share your thoughts and comments, contact me at whitcopress@cox.net
