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Stephen Reck, guitarist

Who or what inspired you to take up the classical guitar, and make it your career?

The rage to master happened after hearing a recording of the Concierto De Aranjuez during my teenage years. There were no classical guitar teachers in my native town of Donegal in the Northwest of Ireland so I had to travel an 8 hour roundtrip to Dublin every other weekend to study to renowned Irish classical guitarist John Feeley. Up to this point I had played electric guitar.

Who or what were the most important influences on your playing?

Andres Segovia, John Williams, Johann Sebastian Bach. My influential teachers were John Feeley, Carlos Bonell and Ricardo Iznaola

What have been the greatest challenges of your career so far?

Adapting to the many skills that are required of the musician today.

Which performances are you most proud of?

Performances that were against the odds when either the material or the emotional state proceeding the performance has been challenging

Do you have a favourite concert venue to perform in?

National Concert Hall, Dublin

Favourite pieces to perform? Listen to?

Chaconne BWV 1004 Johann Sebastian Bach, Scarlatti Sonatas, music of Albeniz, Granados,

Who are your favourite musicians?

Those who manage to transcend the technique and make each phrase sound loved. Segovia, Benedetti, Rheinhardt, Gould, Horowitz, Pollini

What is your most memorable concert experience?

Nigel North playing BWV 1004 on the lute

What do you consider to be the most important ideas and concepts to impart to aspiring musicians?

Practice smart not hard, enjoy the challenges and take risks.

What are you working on at the moment?

Various new compositions by French composer Colette Mourey and a second CD

What is your idea of perfect happiness?

A good equilibrium between teaching and performing goals

Irish born classical guitarist Stephen Reck is regarded as one of the foremost players of a new generation of artists emerging from Ireland. Born in Dublin, Stephen grew up in a small town called Donegal in the northwest of Ireland. He holds a Bachelor in Music Performance from Trinity College, Dublin and a Masters Music from the London College of Music. Initially he studied with Irish virtuoso John Feeley before leaving Ireland to study in London with Carlos Bonell. Stephen also did advanced guitar studies over two years with Cuban guitarist Ricardo Iznaola in at the University of Denver, USA who said of Stephen’s playing “Great technique and beautiful sound”.

Based in London, Stephen has performed in Ireland, UK, France and America. He has made regular appearances at the John Field Recital Room of the National Concert Hall in Dublin and venues throughout the UK and has also performed and taught at the Bowdoin International Music Festival, Maine, USA performing such contemporary works as Mundis Canis by George Crumb and Tan Dun’s as part of the Gamper Music festival.

He has recently premiered two works written for him by renowned French composer Colette Mourey in Paris. Colette who recently won first prize in the 20th International Competition for Instrumentalists and Composers 2012 said “Stephen Reck is a complete, very sensitive, marvellous musician, with a great quality of inspiration in all the pieces he interprets; beautiful sound, very varied colours…and a great concentration in all his musical and guitaristic effects”.

Distributed by Con Brio recordings, his first album of recorded work “Saudade” was released early in 2007, and has been featured on many radio stations including RTE Lyric FM and WNYC radio New York. According to Jeremy Nicholas of Classic FM Magazine said “An imaginative choice of 12 works sensitively played, intimately recorded and nicely presented ” (June 2008), and American Record Guide “Clean pleasant tone….. his best work is the most challenging piece, Dodgson’s ‘Fantasy Divisions’, which he navigates with involvement and imagination…”

In addition to his solo work Stephen has collaborated for several years with the highly regarded flautist David Cuthbert as part of the group Flautarra and Gina Kruger as part of the Kruger-Reck Piano Guitar Duo

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Detail from Richard Hamilton’s ‘Portrait of a Woman as an Artist’, 2007, oil on inkjet on canvas, 100cm x 123cm. Photograph: courtesy of the estate of Richard Hamilton

In a remarkable exhibition at the National Gallery, the late Richard Hamilton, doyen of the Pop Art movement of the 1950s and 1960s, and a leading British artist with an international following, has left a beautiful and startling legacy in an exquisitely executed visual study of the fundamentals of the artist’s craft.

Read my full review here

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Stephen, one of the students on the course

Another excellent weekend on Penelope Roskell’s Advanced Piano course – my fifth course run by my teacher. Three friends were there, including Stephen Gott, who I met nearly three years ago on the first course we both attended. (Stephen has just entered his second year at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance.) With a total of just six students, instead of the more usual eight, there was plenty of time for discussion and appreciation of the repertoire we all brought to the course, to play and to share: it was supportive and inspiring. The standard of playing is usually pretty high, which means we get to enjoy quality music, every day.

I have blogged before about how useful I find my teacher’s courses: the small number of students (a maximum of eight to allow plenty of participation), the intimate setting (the course takes place in the spacious sitting room of Penelope’s home) and the (reasonably) relaxed end of course concert on the Sunday afternoon make for an atmosphere that is both stimulating, challenging and friendly. By Sunday, when we’ve all got to know each other better, the atmosphere is relaxed and we often spend the time simply playing music for one another. Sometimes all we need as pianists is to play for others. Helen Burford, a pianist based in Brighton, whom I’ve met a couple of times on these courses, and I even played a suite of tiny duets for beginner students, bringing a touch of elan to each miniature, to the accompaniment of laughter from our fellow students.

By the third day, people are transformed by the experience and someone who may have said at the outset that there is no way they are playing in the concert, feels secure enough to perform. And this, for me, is the major benefit of the course, to give confidence to nervous or shy performers, and to bring out the very best in people through gentle yet focused tutoring.
The course is organised as a series of masterclasses, and begins each morning with yoga-based exercises especially devised for pianists to help loosen shoulders and back, and warm up arms and hands, legs and feet. Everyone gets the chance to play at least once every day, and students can select when in the day they would like to play – some people prefer to play early on “to get it over with” and then sit back and enjoy others playing through the day. We take our lunch in the garden if the weather is fine, or in the conservatory, our musical conversations accompanied by the squeaking of the pet guinea pigs!

I took Liszt’s Sonetto 104 del Petrarca and Mozart’s Rondo in A minor to the course. Both pieces form part of my LTCL Recital programme and I really just wanted to put them before a small audience for some feedback. The Mozart in particular was very well-received, which was most gratifying since I’ve spent such a long time with this piece – playing it, studying it and reading about it. I also played it in the end of course concert.

Another lovely aspect of these courses is the great variety of repertoire one can encounter. Helen always brings interesting pieces, this time ranging from Bach to Chick Corea. On Saturday afternoon, at the very end of the day, she played the evocative Lotus Land by Cyril Scott, a piece we had both, coincidentally, heard, and liked, on the Radio Three recently. It has echoes of Delius, Debussy and Satie. We also enjoyed music by Chopin, Beethoven, Debussy, Haydn, Schumann, Shostakovich, Brubeck, and Vask. Hear a selection of the music we played here:

Autumn Piano Course (a Spotify playlist)

Live performances:

For more information about Penelope Roskell’s advanced piano courses and workshops for pianists and piano teachers, please visit http://www.peneloperoskell.co.uk/

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I’m flagging up this interesting collaboration on behalf of trumpeter Simon Desbruslais, a recent Meet the Artist interviewee……

On Monday 8th October, Simon will be performing with the Ligeti Quartet at Holywell Music Room, Oxford, in two works for the unusual combination of trumpet and string quartet. Both pieces are new commissions, and receive their world premiere on Monday evening: Quintet for Trumpet and Strings (2009) by Robert Keeley, and Simultaneously Sovereign and Invaded (2011) by his student, Steve Hicks. Completing the cycle, music by Keeley’s former composition teacher, Franco Donatoni, will also feature with works for solo trumpet and viola.

The concert will also feature music by Gyorgy Ligeti, including his Poeme Symphonique (1962) for 100 clockwork metronomes. If you have a clockwork metronome, the Ligeti Quartet would love to hear from you. Go along to the concert, and in exchange for the loan of your metronome, you will receive a free ticket.

This promises to be fascinating and unusual evening of music. Further information about the concert here

My Meet the Artist interview with Simon Desbruslais