And then came the big break. After freshman year at Yale University, I won the Toronto Guitar ’75 competition. Tours and recordings followed in Japan, and the next year I won the Munich International competition. Tree years later as a winner of the Queen Sofia competition in Madrid, I began a 20- year friendship with Joaquin Rodrigo when he invited me to his home after hearing my live broadcast of his Concierto de Aranjuez.
During my last two years at Yale, frustrated by a lack of guidance in playing Bach, I began studying baroque performance practice with the great Bach scholar and keyboard artist Rosalyn Tureck. It meant starting from the beginning, with discipline and much patience – we spent an entire year
on just one suite! I performed that suite in my New York debut in Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall in 1979, and signed shortly after with Columbia
Artists Management
Inc. After ten years of study with Tureck, I recorded the complete Bach lute suites for EMI/Virgin Clasics - the first of several CDs with the label - and published two of our collaborative editions with G. Schirmer, Inc.
By the time of my New York debut, composers had begun writing for me, creating what would become a catalog of concerti, solo and chamber works by some of the finest musicians of our time: John Corigliano, Tan Dun, Christopher Rouse, Lukas Fos, Aaron Jay Kernis, Joseph Schwantner, Joan Tower, Howard Shore, Ned Rorem, David Diamond, Leo Brouwer, among many others. My American Landscapes CD, the first ever recording of American guitar concerti, was launched in the space shuttle Atlantis and
presented as a gift to Russian
cosmonauts during a rendezvous with Mir in 1995. As a former rocket enthusiast, you can imagine my excitement when astronaut Chris Hadfield phoned every day the week of the launch with updates re NASA’s approval for the CD and a Soloette Travel Guitar for the ship’s band to be carried aboard.
In the 1980s, I was invited to perform with bossa nova legend Laurindo Almeida and jazz guitarist Larry Coryell. Our Guitarjam trio lasted for five years, and we were at the vanguard of what came to be known as crossover. Though in those days crossover was a risky concept and I had to defend myself against narrow-minded purists who believed classical players should never step outside the box. Now everyone is racing to do it! Also during this time, Carnegie Hall asked me to create their first ever guitar festival, Guitarstream ’85. I assembled 40 musicians and an
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