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ELIOT FISK AND VALERIE HARTZELL TO PERFORM AT PENNSYLVANIA ACADEMY OF MUSIC'S GUITAR FESTIVAL
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LANCASTER, Pa. - International guitar sensation Eliot Fisk returns to the Academy's Steinman Hall to headline the school's second Guitar Festival. His solo concert February 5 at 7:30 p.m. is preceded by award-winning soloist Valerie Hartzell's performance the previous evening, Feb. 4, at 7:30 p.m. Hartzell will also provide a free master class to area guitar enthusiasts of all ages at 4:00 p.m. February 5.
- 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 worldwide for his adventurous repertoire and willingness to take art music into unusual venues, including schools, senior centers, and prisons, he belongs, as his great mentor Andrés Segovia once wrote, “at the top line of our artistic world.”
Fisk was the last direct pupil of Segovia and also studied interpretation under the legendary harpsichordist, Ralph Kirkpatrick, at Yale University, from which he graduated summa cum laude in 1976. In June of 2006, by order of King Juan Carlos of Spain, Eliot Fisk was awarded the rarely bestowed Cruz de Isabel la Católica for his service to the cause of Spanish music. He shares this honor with Segovia and Yehudi Menuhin.
While Fisk is one of the world’s most celebrated performers, he is also particularly renowned for his energetic teaching. He is on the faculty of the Universität Mozarteum in Salzburg, Austria, where he teaches in five different languages, as well as in Boston at the New England Conservatory. His students come from all corners of the earth and many have gone on to become important performers and teachers in their own right.
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. In 1996 he gave 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.
Fisk has expanded the repertoire for the guitar enormously through countless groundbreaking transcriptions of works by Bach, Scarlatti, Haydn, Mozart, Paganini, and others as well as through commissions from a large number of leading composers. His numerous 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. Guitar Review magazine wrote that his transcriptions of the complete Bach unaccompanied violin sonatas and partitas “place him alongside Casals and Gould as one of this century's greatest interpreters of Bach.”
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 2008 Eliot Fisk also began a highly anticipated collaboration with guitar legend Angel Romero. In addition to his performing career Eliot Fisk is founder and director of Boston Guitar Fest, an annual cross disciplinary musical extravaganza co-sponsored by the New England Conservatory and Northeastern University.
Valerie Hartzell began her classical guitar studies at the age of three. At the age of six, she studied with Maestro Alexandre Lagoya at the Académie Internationale d’Eté in Nice, France. She has participated in master classes with several internationally acclaimed artists, including Ako Ito, Castellani-Andriaccio Duo, David Russell, and Elena Papandreou. In 1991, Ms. Hartzell made her debut performing Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s Concerto for Guitar and Orchestra with the New Philharmonic Orchestra of Irving, Texas. She made her international debut in San Mamete, Italy at the Festival del Piccolo Mondo in August 1994. She has performed in Europe, Canada, the U.S. and has appeared on television in Nice, FR.
Hartzell has appeared at many festivals and has received numerous awards. In August 2003, Ms. Hartzell was the first performer to win the “K-Artist of the Month Contest” sponsored by Houston’s former classical station, KRTS, 92.1FM. Additionally, she was a prizewinner at the Portland Guitar Competition, the East Carolina University Competition and Festival, and the Appalachian Guitar Festival and Competition. She has won first prizes at the 10th International Guitar Competition “Simone Salmaso” in Viareggio, Italy and at the Concours de Guitare Classique Heitor Villa-Lobos in Nice, France. At the Peabody Conservatory of Johns Hopkins University, Ms. Hartzell was awarded the highest undergraduate scholarship for the classical guitar and studied with Manuel Barrueco earning her Bachelor’s Degree in 1997. She was awarded a graduate teaching fellowship at Radford University with Robert Trent and was placed as an adjunct faculty member while studying for her Master’s Degree in Music. She received her performance degree in May of 1999.
Currently, she is on the faculty of the Moores School of Music at the University of Houston and is an adjunct faculty member at Houston Community College. She keeps an active solo career and works in a professional duo with soprano Sandra Johnson, as Duo Athena and frequently is a judge at international competitions throughout the United States. Valerie Hartzell is the creator and Director of the "Classical Minds" Guitar Festival and Competition at Moores School of Music, University of Houston and is the director of the Greater Houston Guitar Guild.
Valerie Hartzell is performing at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday February 4, 2010. Tickets are $10 for adults, $5 for students, and free for Academy students and children three and under. Her master class will begin at 4.00 p.m. February 5. The class is free and open to the public, but the Academy requests that interested persons call to reserve a space.Eliot Fisk’s concert begins at 7:30 p.m. Feb. 5. Tickets are $18 for adults, $5 for students, and free for Academy students and children three and under. For tickets or to make a master class reservation, call 717-399-9733 or click here.
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