Mel Bay presents Melody & Harmony for Guitarists
John (Jack) Duarte was born in Sheffield on 2 October 1919. He is 100% English despite his name, his father being Scottish and mother English. He was educated at the Manchester Central High School (1931-35) and obtained an Honours Degree in Science at Manchester University, Faculty ofTechnology (1936-40). He worked as a professional scientist until 1969, when he abandoned science in favour of full-time music. His formal musical education was lessons with Terence Usher (1934-36) in jazz-guitar playing; the rest was by self-instruction. He also worked professionally as a player of the trumpet and double-bass in music of many kinds, and regularly as a jazz musician until 1953. His many friendships with great artists have included one of 39 years with Andrés Segovia and a shorter one with Ida Presti, who died in 1967. Among those who have died, he can count as colleagues or collaborators in various ways, many other prominent figures in the 20th-century guitar scene: Laurindo Almeida, Alexandre Lagoya, Antonio Ruiz-Pipó, Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco and Alexandre Tansman, and in the field of the lute, the great Diana Poulton. John Duarte has composed over 130 works for the guitar and lute, many commissioned with funds provided by the Arts Council of Great Britain and other sources, private and official, both domestic and overseas. Most have been published; 57 have been recorded, some several times, by 58 artists and ensembles from 24 countries. He is also the author of many arrangements and didactic works. He has been and still is-- a proflific writer, currently as a contributor to the American journal Soundboard, specialist reviewer of baroque, early and plucked-string music for Gramophone, reviewer for Music Teacher and contributor to Classical Guitar. As an annotator he has written countless concert programe notes and liner notes for over 250 recordings of music of many kinds, including those for the reissue of Julian Bream s recordings with RCA (28 compact discs). In 1980 he received a Grammy Award for his annotation of the reissue of Segovia s recordings made for EMI (1927-39). Other magazines for which he has written regularly in the past include BMG, Music in Education, Guitar Review, Guitar International, Guitar Player, Music & Musicians, Records & Recording, Classical Music Fortnightly and Performance. He is a contributor to the new edition of The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. As a teacher he has prepared many international students for successful careers and he was Director of the Cannington International Guitar Summer School and Festival (1974-93). In 1994-95 he was Course Director of the Bath International Guitar Festival and since 1996 he has taught at the Oatridge International Guitar Summer School and Festival (Edinburgh), for which he writes a yearly guitar-orchestral work. In addition he has enjoyed teaching, lecturing and adjudicating in competitions in 29 countries outside Great Britain. In 1990 he received a decoration for his contributions to Anglo-Czech and Slovak cultural relations. On 20 February 1999 he was honoured to receive a plaque, presented by the Fullerton campus of California State University "In recognition of his extraordinary contribution to students world-wide through his teaching, writing and composition." On 20 August 1999 he was accorded a virtuosic tribute concert at the VIIth International Guitar Festival in Brno (Czech Republic), and at the Convention of the Guitar Foundation of America in October 1999 he received an Award for Lifetime Achievement. John Duarte s 60th and 70th birthdays were celebrated with concerts of his music in London, played by artists from England, Czechoslovakia, Croatia, Germany, the USA and Venezuela. That on his 80th birthday was given by artists from Brazil, Croatia, England, Greece, Ireland, Italy and Scotland.