About Us
The York
Guitar Quartet started performing as an ensemble in 1983. Since then
they have toured extensively performing at Arts Centres,
Festivals, Universities and many other venues.
All members of the Quartet are professional performers and teachers. As
individuals they are interested in diverse forms of guitar music whilst
they have, between them, an impressive performance record including
numerous TV and radio broadcasts.
Brief History
1983:
John
Mackenzie, Andrew Forrest, David Ashworth and David Scarth formed the
York Guitar Quartet initially using three standard (tenor) guitars and
one acoustic 4-string bass guitar to explore their mutual enjoyment of
guitar music.
1986:
Made our first recording,'York
Guitar Quartet', featuring music by Bach, Corrette,
Carulli, Walton and Vaughan Williams.
1990:
Augmented the existing instruments with Requinto guitars tuned a fourth
higher than standard, giving the Quartet an extended range and wider
tonal pallette.
1992:
Commisioned a new bass guitar of original design from luthier
Dave Gregory, with six strings and a tone closer to the
classical
guitar. Our preferred combination of instruments ever since has been
either two requintos, tenor and bass; or, one requinto, two tenors and
bass; or, less frequently; three tenors and bass.
1997:
Our second recording, 'On the Overgrown Path',
featuring music by Janacek, Bartok and Stravinsky released on CD.
2005:
Founder
member David Ashworth left York and the Quartet. David made many great
contributions to the development of the quartet in
performance, repertoire and organisation. We wish him well in
his
future musical endeavours.
2006:
New member Mark Currey joined the quartet. yorkguitarquartet.com
website created.
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York Guitar Quartet
is a member of
The Musicians in Residence Scheme
supported
by funding from the Arts Council England
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