When it comes to classical guitarists, Eliot Fisk is tops. He's traveled the world over, made scads of recordings and pulled off musical feats few thought possible. In a recent phone interview, Fisk skirted mention of his next recording or big-shot conductors he's worked with, and zeroed right in on music as a force for social good and how music schools have failed to teach this. While he was at it, he blasted classical music presenters for not learning more from rockers. Fisk, who was raised Quaker, said he urges his students to take their talent outside the concert hall and to perform in hospitals, prisons and schools.
Music can be part of the battle for the soul of our society.
Fisk, the last disciple of guitar legend Andres Segovia, was speaking from his studio in Salzburg, Austria, where he is a professor at the famed Mozarteum . It was early evening, and he was just finishing up a lesson with a student from Cuba and munching on the last bits of a sandwich. Fisk accepted a second teaching post a year ago at Boston's New England Conservatory , but otherwise he's been based in Europe since the early 1980s. He lives with his wife outside Cologne, Germany, and spends summers rejuvenating in Spain. Sometimes I wake in the middle of the night and literally don't know where I am.