Birthday Concert
a celebration of Frank Wallace’s 65th anniversary, guitar and baritone
music by composers born on or near Frank’s birthday, (November 22): Benjamin Britten, Joaquín Rodrigo, Julio Sagreras, Francisco Tárrega, Manuel de Falla, and, of course, Frank Wallace.
Birthday Concert is available spring 2018 – summer 2019. Please write for more information with our Contact form or to “info (at) gyremusic.com”; download 2017-18 Frank Wallace Birthday Guitar Concert
Workshop/masterclass also available:
The Singing Guitar how to play beautiful vocal lines on the guitar
Is your guitar a mini-orchestra as Andre Segovia described it? Or a small chamber choir, solo singer, violin virtuoso or blown woodwind? How do you approach the playing of melodic lines? This workshop will discuss the techniques involved in making your guitar sing. What is vibrato? What is legato? What is portamento? How do vowels effect your tone quality? What is the best fingering to achieve your goal? How do timbre and attack effect your vocal line? Read more: The Singing Guitar Workshop
Please click on tabs above for detailed program info, biography, video and audio. DOWNLOAD PDF of 2017-18 Frank Wallace Birthday Guitar Concert
Copyright ©2016 Frank A. Wallace
Photography and design by Nancy Knowles, Emily Taub; All rights reserved.
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PHOTOS
Hi res photos are available at Flickr Frank Wallace Performance and many more casual shots for the web are at Flickr Albums
Birthday Concert is available fall 2017 – summer 2018. Please write for more information with our Contact form or to “info (at) gyremusic.com”
NOTES
I have often wondered from whence my artistic sensibilities come. My parents enjoyed listening to musicals and decorating the house with small paintings of local artists, but they were not artists. My story for decades has been that one grandfather played the piano by ear and the other wrote poetry and plays, and that’s where I got “my talent.” But part of being a composer is becoming intrigued with numbers and their relationships. An alternative theory, though perhaps more mystical, seems too intriguing to ignore:
1963 – The numbers 11 and 22 become seared in all memories when JFK is assassinated on 11/22; my 11th birthday
1970s – I fall in love with Bream’s recordings of contemporary English composers Britten, Walton, Bennett, etc.
1974 – I play Britten‘s Nocturnal in my senior recital
1976 – Gunther Schuller, president of NEC, calls me to offer me a teaching job at NEC
1980 – Touring Spain with Trio LiveOak, we are invited to meet with Joaquín Rodrigo who is commissioned to write songs for the Trio. (Líricas Castellanas, with dedication to my wife Nancy Knowles, is delivered one year later, one of his last compositions)
2003 – I meet Norbert Dams, German guitarist/composer/publisher, at the GFA in Merida, Mexico
The connection? All composers named above were born on November 22, my birthday, or on my mother’s birthday, March 29. I recently discovered that the great Argentinian guitarist/composer Julio Sagreras was also born on Nov. 22, and Toru Takemitsu, composer and arranger of many important works for guitar, was born on my father’s birthday, October 8. November 22 is also St. Cecilia’s Day, patron saint of music, for whom many well-known poems and pieces of music have been written.
This concert is a celebration of my 65th birthday, in 2017, and the works that have graced the repertoire of the modern classical guitar oeuvre that emanated from musicians born on these special days. It is an honor to cohabit Nov. 22, this day of music, with the likes of Benjamin Britten (1913), Joaquin Rodrigo (1901), Gunther Schuller (1925), and a couple of close calls in Manuel de Falla (Nov. 23, 1876), and Francisco Tárrega (Nov. 21, 1852). My mother’s birthday is March 29, joined by William Walton (1902) and Richard Rodney Bennett (1936). –FW
Birthday Concert is available spring 2018 – summer 2019. Please write for more information with our Contact form or to “info (at) gyremusic.com”
poetry by my grandfather Frank C. Wallace, received on my 50th birthday
Suite Hartt – Frank Wallace
for the Hartt School of Music’s 50 Anniversary
A Heavy Sleep – Frank Wallace, b. 11/22/1952
in honor of Britten’s 100th anniversary
Nocturnal after John Dowland, op. 70 – Benjamin Britten, b. 11/22/1913
intermission
The Game – music and poetry by Frank Wallace
for medium voice and guitar
D’Angelus – Frank Wallace
for Norbert Dams’ 60th birthday, b. 11/22/51
La Ideal, Romanza sin Palabras #2 – Julio Sagreras, b. 11/22/1879
Preludio #2 – Francisco Tárrega, b. 11/21/1852
Omaggio – Manuel de Falla, b. 11/23/1876
San Juan from Líricas Castellanas – Joaquín Rodrigo, b. 11/22/1901
Fandango (Tres Piezas Españolas) – Joaquín Rodrigo
Birthday Concert is available spring 2018 – summer 2019. Please write for more information with our Contact form or to “info (at) gyremusic.com”
“Wallace plays his own works with inspiration, determination, and a wealth of creativity…he can match the musicality of any player out there…” — This is classical guitar
BIOGRAPHY Frank Wallace, composer, guitarist, baritone; b. November 22, 1952
On stage, Wallace is known for his “elegant virtuosity” (Classics Today) on the guitar, vihuela and lute and is a master of self-accompanied song. He tours internationally, performing music from the 16th – 21st century both as a soloist and with mezzo-soprano Nancy Knowles as Duo LiveOak. He has performed at the Taxco International Guitar Festival, Guitar Foundation of America, Festival Ramon Noble, New York Guitar Seminar at Mannes, the Holland Festival, Regensburg Festival, Música en Compostela, Boston Early Music Festival, Barcelona Festival, International Guitar Festival of Arequipa, the Festival of Spanish Song of Granada, and more.
Wallace is a graduate of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music in guitar performance and is self-taught as a composer. He moved to the East Coast immediately after graduation in 1974. Since 1986 he has received enormous inspiration from his family and their residence in a 1789 farmhouse in rural New Hampshire. American Record Guide calls Wallace’s compositions “exciting, unpredictable, and fresh”. Fanfare magazine has dubbed him a composer with “an authentic expressive voice” and a “high standard of musical interest” who performs with “flawless technical proficiency”. Frank Oteri of NewMusicBox.org calls it “contemporary musical emancipation”. Wallace’s works showcase the classical guitar in solo and ensemble, as well as in chamber works with voice, flute, violin, viola, cello, oboe, bassoon, English horn, mandolin, and piano. His compositional style has many influences, from Medieval and Renaissance to blues, jazz, minimalism and modern atonalism. Great passion and a sense of humor infuse both his compositions and his performances.
Frank Wallace founded and directed for four years the Boston Classical Guitar Society’s Festival 21, a celebration of all that is new in 21st century classical guitar. He also served a two-year term as artistic director of the Society. In New York City Wallace founded and co-directed the Second Sundays Classical Guitar Series in conjunction with the NYC Classical Guitar Society and Roger Smith Arts. He has taught at the New England Conservatory, Plymouth State College, Emmanuel College, Keene State College and Franklin Pierce College and has a B.M. from San Francisco Conservatory.
In 2014 Frank Wallace wrote a one hour chamber suite for the 50th anniversary of the Hartt School of Music’s Guitar Department. He has also written for Juan Carlos Laguna, Pablo Garibay, Edel Muñoz, ChromaDuo, the Jugend Zupf Orchestra of Germany, Mare Duo, Marek Pasiezcny, Ciraldo Duo, Olson / De Cari Duo, the Providence Mandolin Orchestra and more. He has recorded for Gyre, Titanic, Centaur, and Musical Heritage Society, which re-released a number of LiveOak and Frank Wallace recordings in 2008. His compositions are published by Gyre Music and have been featured in Guitar Review, Soundboard, Fingerstyle Magazine, and The LSA Quarterly.
Wallace’s complete recordings and compositions are available at www.gyremusic.com, a site rich with information and samples of sheet music and audio.
“…a composer with a distinct voice…” Soundboard
Birthday Concert is available spring 2018 – summer 2019. Please write for more information with our Contact form or to “info (at) gyremusic.com”