The use of cameras or recording equipment during the 

performance is not allowed. Please be sure that cell phones,

pagers, and other electronic devices are turned off.

Please note that late entry or reentry ofthe 

West Building after 6:30 pm is not permitted.

For the convenience of concertgoers, 

the Garden Cafe remains open for light refreshments

until 6:00 pm on Sundays.

Music Department

National Gallery ofArt

Sixth Street and Constitution Avenue nw

Washington, DC

www.nga.gov

Concerts are made possible in part through the generosity of donors

to the National Gallery of Art through The Circle. Reserved seating is

available in recognition oftheir support. Please contact the development

office at (202) 842-6450 or circle@nga.gov for more information.

cover: James McNeill Whistler, The Guitar Player, 1875, drypoint,

National Gallery ofArt, Washington, Rosenwald Collection

The Seventy-second Season of

The William Nelson Cromwell and F. Lammot Belin

Concerts

National Gallery ofArt

2,994th Concert

Eliot Fisk and Paco Pena, guitarists

April 27, 2014

Sunday Evening, 6:30 pm

West Building, West Garden Court

Admissionfree
The Musicians

The performers will announce their programfrom the stage.

ELIOT FISK

A charismatic performer who takes on adventurous and virtuosic repertoire,

guitarist Eliot Fisk has been described by his late mentor Andres Segovia

as “at the top line of our artistic world,” and identified in a review ofhis

recording ofworks by Nicolo Paganini as “the devil’s guitarist.” Celebrated 

for his willingness to take classical guitar music into unusual venues, he has

not only performed with the American Composers Orchestra, the Orchestra

of St. Luke’s, and the Houston Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, and

Stuttgart Chamber orchestras, but has also taken his artistry to senior

centers, logging camps, and prisons. Fisk has expanded the guitar repertoire

through works dedicated to him by composers Leonardo Balada, Robert

Beaser, Nicholas Maw, George Rochber, and Kurt Schwertsik. Among the

recent premieres Fisk has performed are Chemin vby Luciano Berio; a new 

concerto by Daniel Bernard Roumain; and Kollwitz Kodex, a tribute to

German artist Kathe Kollwitz for soprano and guitar by Ralf Gawlick.

In addition to his studies with Andres Segovia—he was the master’s last

direct pupil—Fisk studied interpretation at Yale University with the legendary

harpsichordist Ralph Kirkpatrick. Now a professor at the Universitat Mozarteum in Salzburg, Austria, where he teaches in five languages, and at the New

England Conservatory, Fisk is the founder and artistic director ofBoston

GuitarFest, an annual cross-disciplinary and cross-cultural festival. In 2006

King Juan Carlos of Spain awarded Fisk the Cruz de Isabel la Catolica for his

service to the cause of Spanish music. Earlier recipients ofthis honor included 

Andres Segovia and Yehudi Menuhin.

Reviewing a duo recital by Fisk and Paco Pena, the New York Times

wrote: “Eliot Fisk, a classical guitarist, and Paco Pena, a prolific flamenco 

player, have been working to blur those boundaries... he and Mr. Pena 

traded lines, matched tremolando techniques, and thrashed away at richly

voiced chord progressions fully as equals.”

PACO PENA

Described by the New York Times as “a virtuoso, capable of dazzling an 

audience beyond the frets ofmortal man,” flamenco guitarist Paco Pena

embodies both authenticity and innovation in that archetypal Spanish art 

form. A composer, dramatist, producer, and artistic mentor as well as a

guitarist, he was bom in the Andalucian city ofCordoba, where he began 

learning guitar from his brother at age six and made his first professional

appearance at age twelve. In his adopted home of London, where he has

lived since the late 1960s, Pena can be heard in venues that range from

the monumental Royal Albert Hall to Ronnie Scott’s intimate Jazz Club.

Outside the United Kingdom, Pena has played at Carnegie Hall and the 

Concertgebouw in Amsterdam as well as at festivals in Adelaide, Athens,

Hong Kong, Israel, Istanbul, and Singapore.

Rated by readers of Guitar magazine as the best flamenco guitarist of

the year for five consecutive years, in 2010 Pena collaborated with theater

director Jude Kelly in Quimeras, a dance work commissioned by the Edinburgh International Festival for the Arts. Previous collaborations with Kelly

include A Compds! (In Time), a vivid presentation of a range offlamenco 

rhythms; Flamenco sin Fronteras (Flamenco without Borders); and Voces y

Ecos (Voices and Echoes). In 1991, working with the Choir ofthe Academy

of Saint Martin in the Fields, Pena created Misa Flamenca, a setting ofthe

Mass. His own dance company, founded in 1970, produces musical theater

extravaganzas, including Musa Gitana (Gypsy Muse), written in 1999 and 

based on the life and work ofCordoban painter Julio Romero de Torres.

Its seven-week season at the Peacock Theater in London’s West End stands

as the longest-ever mn of a flamenco show in that city.

In 1981 Pena founded the Centro Flamenco Paco Pena in Cordoba and

was later appointed artistic director ofthe Cordoba International Guitar 

Festival. In 1985 a professorship in flamenco guitar was established for him

at the Rotterdam Conservatory in the Netherlands. His outstanding achievements include being named an Oficial de la Cruz de la Orden del Merito

Civil and a Gold Medal in the Arts from the John F. Kennedy Center for the 

Performing Arts—both bestowed in person by King Juan Carlos of Spain.