Eliot Fisk | tr

A creative innovator linked to the great romantic tradition of the past, guitarist Eliot Fisk is one of the most exciting and unique artists before the public today. Known world wide for his adventurous repertoire and willingness to take art music into unusual venues (including schools, senior centers and even prisons!) he belongs, as his great mentor Andrés Segovia once wrote, “at the top line of our artistic world.”

Eliot Fisk has performed to dazzling critical and public acclaim in recital, as soloist with major orchestras and in a wide variety of chamber music combinations in most of the great concert halls of the world and in 1996 in a command performance in the Palacio de los Cordova in Granada, Spain, for then U.S. President Bill Clinton and King Juan Carlos of Spain and their families.

In June of 2006, by order of King Juan Carlos of Spain, Eliot Fisk was awarded the Cruz de Isabel la Católica for his service to the cause of Spanish music. Earlier recipients of this rarely bestowed honor include Andrés Segovia and Yehudi Menuhin.

Eliot Fisk has expanded the repertoire for the guitar enormously through countless ground breaking transcriptions of works by Bach, Scarlatti, Haydn, Mozart, Paganini, and others as well as through commissions from leading composers as varied as Luciano Berio, Leonardo Balada, Robert Beaser, Wiliam Bolcom, Xavier Montsalvatge, Nicholas Maw, George Rochberg and Kurt Schwertsik. His innumerable transcriptions and editions are published by Universal, Presser, Ricordi and Guitar Solo Publications.

Eliot Fisk’s many recordings for the Musical Heritage Society, DGG, Arabesque, and EMI have elicited unqualified praise and even entered the Billboard charts as bestsellers. Most of these recordings include repertoire never before performed on the guitar such as his legendary reading of the 24 solo violin Capricci, Op. 1 of Paganini (“Has to be heard to be believed!” — Ruggiero Ricci), his recordings of contemporary works by Berio and Rochberg or his recording with Paula Robison of Robert Beaser’s Mountain Songs, which was nominated for a Grammy. Guitar Review wrote that his versions of the complete Bach unaccompanied violin Sonatas and Partitas, BWV 1001-1006 “place him alongside Casals and Gould as one of this century's greatest interpreters of Bach.” On a lighter note, Gramophon Magazine described his transcriptions for violin, cello and guitar of Bach's Violin Sonatas BWV 1014 – 1019: “If exploring the instrumental potential of the continuo is Baroque music's equivalent of exploring Star Trek’s final frontier, then guitarist Eliot Fisk may be its Captain Kirk and his transcription of Bach’s Six Violin Sonatas its Starship Enterprise”. A soon to be released double CD on Wlidner Records seems sure to create a sensation as well. The set will include the first recordings of Kurt Schwertsik's monumental Ein Kleines Requiem, Eliot's new transcription of John Corigliano's Red Violin Caprices, Robert Beaser's Shenandoah, George Rochberg's complete American Bouquet and Relly Raffman's little gem Für Eliot.

Eliot Fisk's forays into unconventional territory have included collaborations with chanteuse, Ute Lemper; Turkish music master, Burhan Öçal; jazz guitar legend, Joe Pass; flamenco great, Paco Peña; and master of castanets, Lucero Tena. In the 2008 - 2009 season he began a highly successful collaboration with guitar legend Angel Romero resulting in sold out venues and standing ovations from coast to coast.


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