Frank Wallace, Guitar
Saturday, April 16 at 7:30 p.m., Eric Carle Museum, Amherst
Frank Wallace is an artist whose wizardry on the guitar rivals the range and depth of his musical ideas in composition. Fanfare dubs him a composer with “an authentic expressive voice” and a “high standard of musical interest” who plays with “flawless technical proficiency”. The American Record Guide calls Wallace’s music “exciting, unpredictable and fresh”. A prizewinner in the 2013 José Fernández Rojas International Composition Competition in Logroño, Spain, he has also garnered two New Hampshire Artist Fellowship awards for composition.Wallace is a graduate of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, and has taught at the New England Conservatory, Keene State College, and Franklin Pierce University, as well as Lute Society Seminars, the Guitar Foundation of America, and others. His debut recording as composer/guitarist, Frank Wallace — His Own New Works (Gyre 2000), won him a 2001 Artist Fellowship award from the Arts Council of New Hampshire, as did Duo LiveOak’s first recording of Wallace’s songs in 2006. In 2007, Wallace founded the Boston Classical Guitar Society’s Festival 21, and served a two-year term as the Society’s artistic director. In New York City, he founded and co-directed the Second Sundays Classical Guitar Series in conjunction with the NYC Classical Guitar Society and Roger Smith Arts. In 2014, The Hartt School commissioned Wallace with a major grant from the Augustine Foundation to write a one hour chamber suite for the Guitar Department’s 50th Anniversary. One year later, he was a featured recipient of the Ewing Arts Award. He has written works for ChromaDuo, Edel Muñoz, Jugend Zupf Orchestra, Mare Duo, and others.
Known for his “elegant virtuosity” (Classics Today) on the solo guitar, Wallace spent years playing arrangements of vocal music, called intabulations, by the great 16th century lutenists and vihuelistas. He achieved a high level of skill as an arranger himself and as a self-accompanied singer. As composer, Wallace’s many song cycles are a testament to his commitment to the art of singing and the profound connection between guitar and voice.
Great passion and a sense of humor infuse both his compositions and his performances. The complete catalog of Wallace’s recordings and compositions, as well as recordings with his is partner mezzo-soprano Nancy Knowles, are available at www.gyremusic.com, a site rich with information, sheet music and audio/video samples.
Classical Guitar Workshop with Frank Wallace
Sunday, April 17 from 9:30 a.m to 11:30 a.m.
“The Singing Guitar. How To Play Beautiful Vocal Lines on the Guitar”
Registration required for participants. $25 for workshop participants; $12 for observing audience. All skill levels can participate!
Frank Wallace is uniquely qualified to teach this workshop. He began his career as a guitar major at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music where he also sang with the Cantata Singers, a semi-professional group led by one of Frank’s first mentors, Jon Bailey. Upon graduation, he moved to Boston and immediately joined Marleen Montgomery’s Quadrivium, a mixed ensemble of early music instrumentalists and singers.
