The members of the English Guitar Quartet all met at the Royal Academy of Music and have been playing together since 1987. The Quartet’s aim has always been to develop the guitar as a chamber music instrument. To achieve this they have commissioned new repertoire from prominent composers and arranged their own transcribed repertoire. The Quartet has a unique instrumentation using Treble and Bass classical guitars on parts 1 and 4, with standard classical guitars on parts 2 and 3.
The EGQ’s concert history is extensive and includes many full programmes in the Wigmore Hall, the Purcell Room, and St. John’s Smith Square. They have toured in Canada, Australia, and Israel, and have broadcast widely in the UK. Their 2005 live BBC Radio3 broadcast from the Barbican was ‘Performance of the Week’ on the Radio3 website.
The Quartet recorded 3 CD’s for Saydisc Records in the 1990’s. Featuring transcriptions of Romantic, Baroque, and Spanish repertoire by great composers, the recording have been broadcast widely around the world, even turning up as ‘special music questions’ on University Challenge! A fourth recording ‘Suites and Dances’ made in 1988 and released on cassette only is being re-released on CD and Download during 2009.
The special commissions of new repertoire that have formed the centre of most EGQ performances for many years will be the feature of a new recording planned for 2010. Composers Antonin Tucapsky, Vincent Lindsay Clarke, Roger Steptoe, Christian Alexander, Martyn Brabbins, Stefan Rak, and Arthur Wills have all written substantial works for the EGQ, and a new transcription of William Walton’s Varii Capricci by Roland Gallery is going to feature on current programmes of English Music.