cover of episode Episode 167 Eden Stell Guitar Duo

Episode 167 Eden Stell Guitar Duo

2024/2/22
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Brett Williams
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Chris Stell
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Mark Stell
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@Brett Williams : 我对古典吉他二重奏的合作与发展,以及音乐创作和育儿之间的平衡,表达了极大的兴趣。我欣赏那些能长期合作的乐团,并分享了我暂停音乐会演出,专注于作曲的经历。我也谈到了育儿对我的创作时间的影响,以及对经济支持的需求。最后,我表达了对Eden Stell吉他二重奏的期待,并推荐了他们的音乐和一些相关的网站。 @Chris Stell : 我们很幸运赶上了古典吉他的黄金时代,并从许多大师那里学习。我们的二重奏并非一开始就计划永远持续,而是自然发展的结果。我们认真对待工作,但保持轻松的态度。与Mark合作让我能够发挥得更好,二重奏也让我能够更富有表现力,体验到独奏家的感觉。我们制作斯卡拉蒂专辑的初衷是探索其音乐的可能性,并从钢琴家的演奏中获得灵感。我们也谈到了录制专辑和准备音乐会是不同的体验,录制专辑能让人更深入地理解作品。我们制作概念专辑的理念,以及如何选择合适的音乐作品。我们也谈到了与其他音乐家的合作,以及如何改编作品。最后,我们谈到了我们即将发行的两张专辑,一张是关于亚美尼亚民歌的,另一张是关于Vida Presti的。 @Mark Stell : 我们在伦敦皇家音乐学院相遇,并很幸运地赶上了古典吉他的黄金时代,在学习期间接触到许多优秀的吉他演奏家和大师班。我们认真对待工作,但不会过于严肃。与Chris合作让我能够发挥得更好。我们制作斯卡拉蒂专辑的初衷是探索其音乐的可能性,并从钢琴家的演奏中获得灵感。我们也谈到了录制专辑和准备音乐会是不同的体验,录制专辑能让人更深入地理解作品。我们也谈到了改编作品的技巧,以及如何选择合适的音调。我们也谈到了与其他音乐家的合作,以及如何改编作品。最后,我们谈到了我们即将发行的两张专辑,一张是关于亚美尼亚民歌的,另一张是关于Vida Presti的。

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Brett Williams introduces the sponsors of the podcast, Classical Guitar Corner and Savage Classical, and briefly mentions the upcoming interview with the Eden Stell Guitar Duo.
  • Sponsors: Classical Guitar Corner and Savage Classical.
  • Introduction of the Eden Stell Guitar Duo as the guests for the episode.

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Hey, welcome back to Classical Guitar Insider. This is your host, Brett Williams, and this is not classicalguitarcorner.com. This is Classical Guitar Insider, but you can go to classicalguitarcorner.com and you'll have access to some of the best internet teachers,

Some of the stuff that Simon Powis himself has written, his technical and treatises. Right now, you can go to the homepage is Ornamentation, a practical guide, a video by their community manager, Dave Belcher. He walks you through ornamentation. I could really use that. I'm not kidding. Every time I play an ornament, I kind of like look up to make sure that no one is frowning.

Or at least like a, you know, like a Renaissance Baroque ornament. I'm like, am I doing it right? Is it from the upper neighbor? It is, isn't it? You know, anyway, so I'm just doing that and freaking out. And now I think after this, I'm going to, well, to be honest, I'm probably not going to look at it. But you should go to classicalguitarcorner.com and look at the Practical Guide to Ornamentation.

Right. Get into it. Great community. And of course, my old buddy Simon Powis over there. Also sponsored by Savage Classical dot com. That's S-A-V-A-G-E classical dot com. Savage Classical dot com will hook you up with the guitar of your dreams. They're right here on the East Coast in Long Island, New York. Right. So you're going local if you in fact are from here.

which, you know, a lot of you aren't, but you still go to savageclassical.com because I know they got guitar stores over there in England, Edenstell. They don't got no savageclassical.com. There's just something about that old, that old girl that purrs. Savageclassical.com, that old girl that purrs. Tell them Brett sent you. Anyway, Edenstell are on the show. I don't remember mentioning that.

I know I said their name, but that's who we're having. Our guest today is Eden Stel Guitar Duo. I've been wanting to talk to these guys for years. I messed up the time thing, right? The 24-hour clock that they use, which makes sense. It's not a big deal. What time is it? It's 20.30.

Right? Not, what would that be? I don't know. 1030? Anyway, so one of them says, yeah, I'll see you at 1730. And I thought he said 730 because it just did not compute in my brain about that clock. I don't know why. I was in England last year. I don't know what my deal is. So I was unable to figure that out. Now I know. Now I know why.

I always had girlfriends that would have their watch in military. We call it military time over here. You guys just call it time. But to us, there's something militant about it. Anyway, yeah, I date these girls. Kind of like a lot of them would have their watches on military time. And I was always like, what's the deal? Why are you doing this? Get over it. Well, now I know.

They just want to be able to talk to people and they can figure it out. It's a two hour thing. Anyway, 17 threw me off. I thought they were talking about seven 30, which I was like, no, I meant five 30 your time, which was a 1230 my time, which, so it got completely screwed up. It was all my fault. I'm, you know, emailing these guys with a patient yet. I'm assuming could easily be construed as condescending sort of like, okay, let's try this again, sort of attitude. And,

And they just, they dealt with it. And, um, and eventually I realized that I was the one who was screwing things up and apologized. And here we are. No apology needed, by the way, they didn't ask for one. Um, but these guys, this is one of the best guitar duos in the world. This is, this is, it is, they can, that Scarlatti album that came out last year is just the best. And it's, it's so good. It's so crisp and it's just so much fun to listen to. Um,

And they've been around about, you know, like maybe like I'm assuming they're my age or a little bit older. Maybe probably about my age. Exactly. I don't know. We'll ask.

But I've seen them sort of evolve, and they evolved quickly. They were good right away. But what's going on now is pretty cool to watch. And I always appreciate duos or small ensembles that stick together for 20 years. That always makes me feel warm on the inside because I know firsthand how hard it is to keep a group together. It's really, really hard.

And they've been doing it. It's not that hard when you sound that good, though. So it's exciting to have them on. People wanted them on. And this is sort of like I've been, you know, doing with the show, like a lot of like looking for things. Now, I want to say on the fringe. I don't want to say Taiwo Aragoke is on the fringe. I mean, he's trying to do traditional things with the guitar just in his own country.

But, you know, Alex Degrassi and some of the stuff with the multimedia that's been coming up. That stuff is great. I love that stuff. But it's nice. I'm excited to just talk to some people in the rat race here. Let's talk some classical guitar. As for myself, I stopped playing my concerts for a while. I'm just back to composing. It's great. Stopping playing concerts wasn't necessarily my choice, but...

I played for the Brooklyn classical guitar society. That was wonderful. And then after that, I just sort of went, um, I'm going to take it easy for a while until the summer. And I just feel the need to compose. I haven't really composed in like a year and a half. So it's time for me to sit down and, and just be creative. And what, what a, what a wonderful feeling it is be creative, but it also gets sort of co-opted by the new baby. Who's now seven and a half months old, uh, little Wally shit pants is. And, um,

And, you know, he's a handful and not just that, but the minute he's around, it's just, that's all I want to do. And, um, but, uh, I went back to composing and I can do it. In fact, it's, it's inspiration. If you are thinking about not having a baby, cause you think it's going to interfere with your time. You are right. It will. And if people are like, oh, don't worry about it. Don't worry about it. Uh, they're probably in my position, which is a position where your wife works a corporate job and you have daycare.

to be honest, that's what's going on. So if anybody tells you it's easy, it is as long as you can put the child somewhere while you work. Right. Um, that's kind of the only way it can get done. And that costs a ton of money. It costs so much money that we need help. Um, so, you know, we, you know, we, we've been, we've been helped. Yeah.

And I don't think people tell you guitarists that enough that they're getting help. Uh, I've been in both positions. I've been in positions where I'm completely alone and my, uh, my options are limited and I've been in positions where it's a little easier, right. Where I, uh, I can, I can figure things out. But, um, as far as like having him around, it's, it's, it's, it's really great. And it's a lot of fun. Um, but anyway, thank God for, um, for, for Liz's corporate job.

And I don't listen. Anybody who's acting like they got their shit together. There's somebody sitting next to them who is just in an office, in a dry, dull office talking about dry, dull things. Well, we all sit around and teach children and, and play music and, and dig up old, old composers and do everything we do. That's the truth of the matter. But it's great. Daycare is great. Daycare is not that good. They don't run. They don't let them nap enough.

That's what they don't do, which is scary, but he is sleeping through the night. Everything about this kid's great. I'm having a good time with him. So if you could do it, have the kid. That's what I would say. Remember, I didn't want a kid. I don't know. I have one. Now I'm glad I have one. Anyway, make sure you visit brettwilliamsmusic.com slash support. That's brettwilliamsmusic.com slash support to support the show. Support Little Wally's Shitpants.

support all of my artistic endeavors. All right. I still need money for this. I still need a justification for existence. It's not like, it's not like her job's paying for everything. New York, $4,000 for a one bedroom right now is what they're asking for. And we need to move. And this is green point. This is an aluminum siding, bombed out piece of shit. A post-apocalyptic nightmare that hipsters live in. And the idea was, is that it was cheap.

It's not cheap anymore. We all don't know where to go. We're all looking around at each other like, where do we go? And we're all saying, there's nowhere else in New York? Philadelphia? Like, I don't know. Detroit? What do we... Who can afford that? Who can afford that? When you start talking for and above, you're starting... You're not talking about guitarists anymore not being able to really live here. You're talking about lawyers and doctors not being able to live here. That is too much money for any human being.

Anyway. All right. That's my rant for today. That's brettwilliamsmajor.music.com slash support. You know, unless you want Wally just out there, just, I don't know, forging his birth year so that he can get a job when he's 10. You guys don't want that. So go to brettwilliamsmusic.com slash support. All right. Here is my time with Eden Stell, guitar duo.

We met at the Royal Academy of Music in London. So that was... There's two main colleges in London. There's the Royal College of Music, Royal Academy. They're the two big colleges in London. We both went there. I think that must have been now in 1988. I think when we first auditioned there. And that's when we first met. Yeah. I mean, when you guys met, it's... I've been in a duo. And it's hard...

I still love the guy and we were in it for about four years and it was really hard to stay together. You know, what do you guys think? I mean, we know a lot of people that start duos, especially right out of college. It's a really fun thing to do. You still have a lot of friends.

You can start these ensembles and these duos and it's kind of easy to do, but it's really hard to maintain that for as long as you guys have maintained that. You guys have been going on 20 years. Your first album was 2002. So you're over 20 years of recording history together, but you guys have been together, like you said, since the late 80s. About 36 years now, yeah. How does that make you feel?

Old. Yes, very old. I think Mark sort of summed it up. I mean, from my perspective...

I think we were very lucky because there was a sort of golden age happening around then with the Abreus, the Assads and everything, and particularly the Assads. I mean, we had this one experience while we were at the Academy and they paid for us to go and join a festival in Cordoba where the Assads were playing and teaching.

And we thought, you know, we'd always admired them greatly. I mean, you know, as students do, we were almost like obsessed with their work. And so we had this week with Sergio Nodea and it was really just us and one other duo for the whole week. And I think that just certainly, I mean, just really inspired us and really set us on that path. But although I'd say, I might probably say, we never sort of really thought, right, we

this is we're going to do this forever and ever it was sort of evolved just through one thing led to another really

Yeah, go ahead. What were you going to say, Mark? No, no, no. I think that Chris has pretty much summed it up. You know, we, and also, I mean, as, as, as well as, you know, there being a kind of, as Chris was describing, you know, there's all these guitarists were coming into London and playing like lots of, lots of American guitarists, international guitarists from all over the world. And we had regular lessons. Well, we,

but it was it was also a golden age at the academy as well at that time because there's there was a whole load of students there who uh now you know i mean they're like the it's it's you know like fabio zanon and the goni goni uh gary ryan um uh oh god i mean it was just who sorry catona twins opponent twins yeah people shouldn't forget about them you know that was a yeah that was

That was a time. Yeah. Loads of people. And it was, you know, we were very lucky because we had regular master classes with Julian Bream and John Williams as well. So there was this big buzz and we just, Chris and I were just unbelievably lucky to arrive just as it started to happen. And kind of, you know, it was like a big wave going through that. So we were there for like six years and it just was, you know, the best time.

Like the most exciting, really lovely experience. We had loads of masterclasses. You know, Leo Brower came in. We had like composers. Peter Maxwell Davis gave us like a whole class on his guitar music. I mean, it was it was, you know, epic. Loads of guitarists from America. We had, you know, David Tannenbaum. Yeah. Sharon Isbin. I mean, it was like. That was their time, too. That's right.

Yeah. Like late eighties was sort of a lady. I mean, it's essentially like 1990 is what we're talking about, right? Yeah. I think, I think what I think you've hit the nail on the head though. I think it's not really, you know, people can play well together, but I think, I think, um,

I think the remarkable thing is to actually keep something going. And I think probably because we didn't try and control it and didn't try and set it in too much of a rigid format. And basically, we took it very seriously, but we didn't take ourselves too seriously. And we still don't. Yeah, that's important.

we take the work very seriously and obviously we want it to be the best it can be. But I think we always keep it in perspective as to what it really is. And I think we have a huge amount of fun doing it. And, you know, and it's always, I think just very lucky. It's it can be a terribly stressful thing to do. Sometimes it's great to share it with someone when you're moving around traveling. It's great to have someone to bounce off of. So,

when you get hooked and you realize this is working and I don't know about Mark, but I certainly, certainly from my perspective, it, it really, it, it allowed me to play at my best working with Mark, something that I wasn't going to do on my own. So, so actually having someone to bounce off really allowed me to get the best I possibly could out of what I was doing. So it sort of made sense. Yeah. That's something that, uh, came up with solo duo too, is that they were talking about, uh,

One of the things that I experienced in a duo was the ability to be expressive beyond anything I could do as a soloist. Just the ability to play a melody like a violinist plays a melody. Yeah.

Yeah. Or clarinetist place in melody and being able to be expressive within that framework instead of having to worry about constantly reconciling the different voices, which is just sort of that's the hallmark of what we do as classical guitarists is playing multiple voices at the same time. Sort of what differentiates us in the eyes of a lot of people. But in a duo,

You really, I mean, the most, to me, the most beautiful thing about playing guitar duo is that you get to live out that fantasy of being, almost being a soloist, you know, like to a degree, like a concerto soloist or someone who's playing a sonata, you know? It's incredible. I mean, at least that was Matteo's perspective, I think. It's true. I think it holds true. It's definitely like...

Yeah, you get to tap into a different part of yourself. Definitely. The possibilities grow hugely with two instruments. God. And it's like, I was also thinking about it. I know I've talked about your Scarlatti album a lot, but I really like it. And I re-listened to it today and I was thinking, man, you know, I'm playing some Scarlatti. I play some as a soloist. It's...

It's, it's something about it is so there's no way you can't get what you can get out of the solo guitar that you get out of the duo with those pieces. It's just, it's just, it's so it's, there's so much more freedom and speed that you can get when you play, especially in that first, that first.

sonata that you guys play. But what's your experience playing with that last album? What was sort of like, I mean, you know, to make an hour of Scarlatti is quite an undertaking as far as the decisions about which sonatas you're going to be playing. Obviously, you know, the Assads are going to be a huge influence in that department. But what was sort of the process when you guys started that in, you know, mid-career or whatever?

I think that's, I mean, it's a good, I mean, basically the,

first thing I think Chris and I thought of was why would anyone want to listen to this much Scarlatti? So there was this sort of slight, you know, why are we doing this kind of thing? However, but you know, there is this moment when you've played a number of sonatas and then you suddenly think, okay, there is, you've got like a kind of a body of music, which, you know, and when the thing about recordings that, you know, they are very specialist these days. So when people

buy a recording or listen to a recording, it's like they don't want to listen to a concert of mixed stuff. They're sort of getting into something. So that's the way...

CDs and recordings has sort of gone over the years. And now obviously, you know, I mean, even making a CD these days, we were questioning, you know, why don't we just release it online? Because people just, that's where people listen nowadays. But we have got a physical, like, you know, some people still love to buy the CD and stuff. And anyway, but anyway, so we

We've always loved Scarlatti and we've played a number of sonatas and then we just kind of explored a little bit more and found these ones that we both really enjoyed. We are huge fans of

pianists and harpsichordists um we have some of some our favorite stuff to listen to is is great pianists uh like a chef we love chef uh Andre Schiff and his one was a huge influence on us uh his his recordings of uh scarlatti and in fact I mean all his recordings um we listened to him quite a lot so uh in a way we're coming at it in a sort of pianistic way if you like

So, you know, we love all the Horowitz recordings, his old recordings of Scarlatti's. I mean, you know, and a lot of people these days would probably listen to those if you were a pianist and say that he's a bit unstylistic, he's just a very romantic kind of way of playing it, but that you can't take away the absolute beauty

sort of brilliance of his playing, which is kind of what those pieces are about. I mean, they're all this very virtuosic Italian style. So even if you hear that on the harpsichord now, it just sounds unbelievably brilliant, virtuosic, very fast, lots of textures, lots of sort of swirling notes which go round and round in like little cellular patterns. And somehow the guitar

can occupy that very interesting or the two guitars can occupy yeah can occupy that nice area between the piano and the harpsichord it's a pluck sound so you get that attack which the harpsichord kind of has and that sort of brilliance of sound but you've got a bigger dynamic and almost that

touch feel that a pianist has you know so you can we we like that sort of approach as well so we kind of you know just thought well there's something in this you know but you know i'm not sure what people would make of listening to all of those sonatas in one go it's quite nice to listen to like three or four i think you know when they go together and then that's like enough

I think you're right. I think that you're, I think the inclination to think that people are going to kind of nerd out on something is, is right. I mean, that's kind of the way people are consuming. That's the way I consume media. Like if I get into something, that's all I want to do for like a week. If I'm reading a certain series, fantasy series or something like I will finish that. And that's, that's my, that's my month. You know what I mean? So I, I know, I,

It feels weird to us to sort of do that, to sort of think of a concept album. A lot of your albums have been concept albums, right? I mean, a lot of them have been sort of like conceptually thought and then presented. And like you said, that is becoming more the norm than it was back pre-Naxos or sort of just like genesis of Naxos days, which is where we would have recital albums. Everybody would have a recital album. You know, John Williams would have a recital album.

and all of our teachers would have recital albums and that's sort of the way it went. But I think you're right. I think that people sort of like

want to hear everything by a composer and just sort of like enjoy that composer's work. I mean, I, from a player's point of view as well, I quite like recording projects. They're very different to preparing for a concert. Concerts are always a joy anyway, because you're dealing with, but sometimes I never forget doing the mompo actually, that was probably the most intensive sessions we ever did. And some of that stuff was. You're talking about being where at the Sergio Assad thing. I'm Sergio. No, this is when we were doing our mompo recording. I would say how. Yeah, exactly.

how in a way it gives you the opportunity to immerse yourself in a style and in a sort of, and I remember doing that recording and actually it's a very different feel to doing the concerts because you really are playing a lot of this stuff. And after a while it sort of clicks, you sort of really get an understanding for that. And I think the same with the Scarlatti, play a lot of it and you sort of start playing it better, playing it well. But Mark's absolutely right. I mean, that's a very indulgent way of doing it. It's lovely to do that.

And in concert, they work in little groups. They're perfect.

But I do think it's nice to document it and to have that there so people can dip in and out. And I think it's clearer for people. If you look at the years we've been recording, you can see areas of focus. And, you know, I'm not saying people will sit and necessarily listen to the whole album, but they can see Samba, they can see the Dodgson, the Mompo, the Scarlatti. And it gives you...

It's sort of a journey, really, rather than too many bits. Yeah, and you're saying that you're using the recording as an opportunity to develop a relationship with the pieces that's deeper than it would be had you just presented it as a section of a program. Totally. So it allows you to really play the pieces the way that you're getting closer to the composer. You're starting to sort of internalize the intentions of the composer in a way that you couldn't do.

So that makes a lot of sense because when you do the concerts, of course, you're probably not going to play 14 pieces by Frederico Mampu, right?

I mean, this is the problem for guitarists, is that the guitar repertoire is enormous, it's vast. So you've got people playing 16th century lute music, and then they're playing the latest sonata by Leo Brower at the other end. And what they're doing is, and I keep saying this to my students, you need to get into stuff to actually learn how to do it. So what a lot of guitarists have learned

done is, you know, they've done an arrangement of a Scarlatti sonata and they've played it and thought, well, I've done Scarlatti now. Well, you know, have you? It's kind of like you, in a way, as Chris was describing, I mean, it's a very, you know, we've been very lucky to indulge ourselves in these projects and, you know, by doing so much, you do get

into the musical style of that, you know, very deeply and kind of connect with it much more. So, you know, you wouldn't, again, play all of that stuff in one concert, but you might like to play three sonatas in one half and another three later on another half. So you're sort of revisiting it and doing stuff and people can get like much more of a gist of, you know, that the essence of the music, the composer, and most importantly, the musical style, you know, so you can't play, you

A lot of guitarists are playing. They're playing really beautifully, but they'll play Dowland the same way they're playing Natalia or something like this by some Brazilian stuff. They're sort of playing it with the same technique or something. These days, you can't do that anymore. You have to become...

you have to become really into something, you know, like, you know, so if you're, that's why we have so many great early musicians nowadays, you know, you've got a lot of people doing lute music, but they'll be, oh, I'm only doing really, you know, from the early 1600s. I'm not doing like anything, you know, pre, you know, pre that or after it, you know, they're sort of really zoning in on a particular area of music. And that's why they become such sought after, you know, performers because they are so good at that thing. So, yeah.

they're the guy that does that yeah exactly yeah let's go through this real quick i've never asked anybody this but hey hey uh chris what's your favorite album that you've done the stephen dodgson actually yeah i think it's i think it's because i i'm most happy i think i think it sits very nicely with how we play i think it represents the kind of players we are the best um

in many ways. I also, we knew Stephen very well and he, I think he was the, funny enough, he's very, we had a festival of Stephen Dodgson at the Academy when we first joined and that was our first ever project together to play one of his pieces. Michael Lewin said, right guys, you're going to do this in the Dodgson Festival. And we were, we were set this huge piece that was really for us, you know, a huge challenge at the time. And I must admit,

We did a reasonable job, but of course having Stephen's guidance opened up all sorts of... It was like always having a conductor to work with. I mean, he's a musician of great stature and not a guitarist in any sense of the word. But I very much like his understanding of the instrument, the way he doesn't overwrite, the way he gets it perfect. He knows how to get the sonorities from the instrument. It takes time for people to come into his music sometimes, but

For me, what happened there was we had asked him after knowing him for a few years and playing most of his duos, we plucked up the courage to ask him if he'd write us a guitar concerto. And he was like, no, guys, no, not going to do this. It's been, you know, I've written so much for guitar. And you're like, please? Yeah.

Well, we sort of left it. And this is the amazing thing. We left it. Nothing was said. And without any exaggeration, it must be about eight months later, this huge parcel arrived on my doorstep. And it was a handwritten score of a double guitar concerto for strings, uh, with strings and beautifully written in Stephen's own hand, like he always does. And, uh,

It was just phenomenal. We just thought, right, we've got to get this played somehow. We've got, I mean, this is, but how? Because, you know, it's expensive to put on things like this and we needed to record it. We needed because of all, you know. So that really started this whole drive to see how, one, we were going to get it performed and recorded. And in the end, we managed to get it performed at the Duke's Hall at the Royal Academy of Music and we had help from them.

And because we know John Williams is a great, he loves Stephen's music. He's always championed it. We put out our feelings and asked if he'd be prepared to come and do a joint, because obviously we knew if he was there, it would be packed. And of course he did come and it was packed.

And so we were able from that to pay the orchestra and then we did the recording. And I think that then made sense. We then put on the trio, all his duos, and we made it complete. And I feel that was a real push, that album. That was a real sort of, I mean, I like all of them. I think all of them have been, but that for me is,

something I'm particularly riversong. I'm very happy with that recording. I'm not often happy with recordings, but that's, that's a special one. I agree. I think it is a great recording. And the other thing is, is that it's sort of like you're saying with his relationship with John Williams and just sort of his relationship with England and Thomas Morley and sort of all the things that are being referenced in his music. It sort of seems like as an Englishman, you must've been like, you know,

This connects me to this greater sort of history of music to this Western tradition. Yeah. And you feel like you're actually engaging with sort of the roots of music, of the conservat-- of the whatever it is, the college. Sorry, not whatever it is. I don't know.

uh but you know um thinking about that is is interesting is just sort of at that time too we're talking about 2000 in like the early mid 2000s right that album yes that's right yeah yeah 2005. yeah so that's early that's you guys are still i mean you guys are young now you guys don't look old you guys don't look that old how old do you guys want to talk about how old you guys are um but it's uh it's it's

you know people could put it together it's 2005 you guys are coming out with this album but that was kind of early in your career right i mean it must have been incredibly exciting to be able to do those personalities at that time

Yeah. Oh, we've been very lucky like that. I mean, I can't believe, I mean, it's been incredible. I mean, we, when we did our Baroque album, um, we thought, okay, we're doing Sergio Abreu's arrangements. Perhaps, uh, he'd like to have a listen and give us some feedback thinking, no, he's not going to. And then he sent us like reams and reams. And then he sent us all his recordings. He sent everything to us and was so supportive. And then Sergio said, I mean, the amount of time he gave us, I mean, it's just, he,

He was just, yeah, come on over. Let's play some pool. And so we couldn't quite get used to this. I mean, the kindness of,

And Stephen Dodgson and, you know, everyone's been so kind and supportive. And I think and you make some great friends doing this. And I think it's and now we've moved over a little bit. We're doing a little bit more work in the U.S. and meeting the Los Angeles guys. And really, Bill, I'm so supportive and interested. And I think that keeps you going, really. Yeah. You talked about two people who.

We'll get back to you if you write a bell. Ken and Geyser is one. Yeah. Assad. I did not expect him to listen to my compositions and get back to me with notes.

Wow. I said, here we go. I got this composition, you know, and he got back to me. He's like, this is great. But you know, it sounds sometimes like you're right. I was like, Oh my God, this is incredible. You didn't need to do this. You're a busy guy. Like I felt bad. But it was kind of guys, it was like the third guest on this show 15 years ago when nobody knew what a podcast was. So it's like,

those and then you got all these other people who don't have time for anything but you know it's kind of funny how the big shots are the ones that will always get back to you and sort of always make time for the instrument and for the people trying to contribute to it um so that's the thing is that you guys are actually sort of engaging with that and i can understand why that's a very important album to you what about you mark what do you what was sort of obviously that was a probably a big moment for you too but is there another album that you can sort of think of that you can

that sort of you always kind of go back to or that you can actually listen to while you do the dishes, you know? I didn't like the way you put that because I think that is actually, you're right. You know, sometimes you listen back to things and you're thinking, oh, you know, I'm not, I'm not sure about that now. It's an Englishman's disposition to not listen to their own things. I can imagine. There's no fucking way you would do that.

I also got into trouble recently because I did a, actually another Stephen Dalton project, but it was all his songs. So the Dalton Trust, I mean, Stephen died obviously 10 years ago now. And he, anyway, he's, a lot of his, a lot of his,

He had a thing which he left to trust. Anyway, and they recorded all his songs. So most of them are with piano and voice, but there are three like, you know, song cycles. Anyway, they sent me all the edits and I actually just didn't listen to any of them and just told them to just, you know, I said, look, just listen to the singer. The singer sounds good.

just forget about the guitar that's the guitar's fine then you know what I mean it's all about that but I must admit that you know we've learned a lot about recording Chris and I have over the years that you know when you have a really good producer we have a wonderful well we have two guys who we work with which is John Taylor who's an absolute legend in the guitar world um engineer and producer which is the majority of our stuff but also we've worked with um

Matthew Wadsworth as well, who's a fantastic, well, he's an amazing lutenist, but he's now doing a record label called Dazzle.

which is brilliant, which we're on with the Scarlatti. And I must admit, I just now trust them implicitly. If they say something's done, it's done and we just move on. But also they're both very, very good that they're very friendly and they allow us to indulge sometimes in recordings. John Taylor has been amazing that he's allowed us to sort of workshop in the... I wouldn't recommend doing this, by the way, to any...

you know, people out there, aspiring guitarists and say, you know, workshop in the middle of the recording session. But basically, you know, we've questioned how we're approaching something in the session and radically changed the way we played it and then recorded it completely differently just because we wanted to make sure

that we hadn't explored something which needed to, you know, be put there. Just try and see what it sounded like. You know, most of the time you've just got to practice it the way you've got to do it and then just record it. But anyway, but I mean, Chris is right. The Stephen Dodson recording is probably one of the ones I would also say is really fantastic. And I love because Stephen means so much to Chris and I and his music and everything. And it's like a,

I mean, it's great to talk about all the stuff about the English music and stuff like that, but actually in lots of ways, I don't think we're thinking of it in a kind of nationalistic way where we're just thinking how

wonderful Stephen is as a human being and just like how much we kind of love him in a way uh you know he's like uh I don't want to say like a father figure but he's a sort of grandfather figure to us you know he's like this you know he's like father Christmas in music to us what I mean so he kind of means something very spiritual to us in a way um but I think the only other album I think I don't know whether Chris agrees with this but I think the Mompoo one is

Well, the Frederico Mompou one is a really great one to also, because that is a 10-year journey for Chris and I when we recorded that, from me making some very small arrangements on the train

once, you know, and then Chris and I playing it. And then, you know, Chris saying, oh, have you got any more of these? And I did a few more. And then Chris kind of sort of posts this question. He goes, how many are there of these? There's like about 12 or 13. And he goes, right, you may as well finish the whole thing and then we can do it. So, and those last ones were very hard to do. So it was, yeah, it was, well, you know, I chose all the ones because they're all originally for piano, except the solo.

And of course, you know, Federico Mompo is just like such an amazing impressionistic pianist. So he uses he can either use minimal amounts of piano, which is great for two guitars because it kind of frames the range of the guitars nicely.

or he starts to really splash around in a kind of romantic way. So there'll be these low octaves and fifths and then chords very high up. So it was very hard to do and find ways around those issues and problems of trying to get the scope of some of those songs and dances onto two guitars and sound convincing.

And Chris and I have got this big thing about, you know, you have to find the right key for all those arrangements. If they don't sit across the body of the sound of the guitar, then it just doesn't work. And a lot of people will do an arrangement and they will make the guitar sound different.

very middly you know to me and it's also stuck in this sort of around and parts are almost crossing over each other because they're too close you need to really spread it all out you know without being completely ridiculous with it but it's it's you know finding the right key is very very important and certain Sergio Sergio Assad's been enormous help with us with that because you know he's

His arrangements of his own things have been groundbreaking. And we've looked at those and how he's done things and learned an awful lot from him. So I think the mompo was very good. And also it was an emotional time for us both at that time. So lots going on in our private lives, basically. And so something about that time was also kind of intense. So it was, you know, it's all wound up in that recording, basically.

Wow. So you guys, you were sort of escaping to it, into each other while you were going through whatever it was personally was happening. Yeah, I think that's a good way of putting it. Escape those arrangements and that music. Your point in your career, it's not always a natural inclination is to escape into the instrument again. That's something that we, as adults, it's sort of, that's the job, right? It's not necessarily what you do to relax, but then

rediscovering it as this sort of thing that you go to when everything else doesn't make sense is, is, is it must've been a beautiful moment. Yeah. Cause that's not that long ago. That's, that's you know, what is that now? 2018, 2018. Yeah. That's a bit before that. And it's pretty, it's pretty, it's pretty massive. What you're saying is as far as arranging for two guitars, piano music sounds like a no brainer to a lot of people, right?

But realistically, yeah, you do get this sort of muddy sound that was sort of dispelled by those Assad recordings. And you guys have achieved it too. The Mampu, I can imagine it because I never really played any of these. But I don't know if you guys ever tried to play like the Villalobos piano music for two guitars. Yeah, we've done some of those. We've done, well, we've done the... I would imagine it'd be kind of the same problem. Yes, exactly.

Sergio's arrangements of those two, some of his stuff is just it is it's on the edge. And I think that's important. I think what can happen with me with maybe students when they're arranging is that they play it safe. And what you've always got to be doing is you've got to feel like you're on stage.

the edge of, then it can work, not over the edge, but just on that line. And Sergio does this amazingly well. I mean, his arrangement of the Schinsterer Pianist Sonata is a masterpiece. And what he's done with that is he's basically taken what in the piano world is a fairly small piece. I mean, most pianists will, I'm sure they'll know it, but they're not programming it because they've got all this other stuff. But on the guitar, it becomes something completely different with the use of percussion, the use of

Sergio's innate understanding of South American music and he's just reinvented the piece and I know that in this era I just know he's going wow and the way the guitars you're listening breathlessly to the absolute not only the genius of the playing but the fact that they heard it's so clever and they've taken it turned it upside down stretched the possibilities and like Mark said they picked the right key and

the instruments on the lowest note, the highest register, it's beautiful to listen. And I find it more exciting than the piano. And that's a great arrangement. When that becomes, it's transcended its original, often you either get the problem of playing too easy and just, you know, like even the Scarlatti, many Scarlattis would be not suitable for the duo because they're much better on the single guitar, actually. The texture's not big enough.

So you don't want to be playing those. You want to be playing things that are going to, because if you can get a soloist doing it, you've just no point. So I think it's, but as Mark said as well, I think for me, I think the Dodgson is one of my favourite top, but I think absolutely right. I mean,

Mark sweated over those arrangements. And I remember together workshopping them and being on the edge of our seats with that. And it was a time of, I remember, I think we were traveling around Germany at the time. And we just like, we shut ourselves away for days at a time, just bashing away to try and make it work. And it's a wonderful thing to have that period.

And then to, to, to, to have gone through that and to just, yeah, it's, it's lovely. It's all projects. I think this is the thing you, you do things because you just feel you have to do those things. It's always, it's always been a project based thing. What, what should we do next? What interests us? It's a one, one, and you, then you throw yourself into it. It's, it's wonderful. Yeah. I mean, and you, you do bring up the Hina Sarah, which is probably that's, that's an incredible, that's probably the best example of what we're talking about, about taking a piece and,

and you listen to that on the piano and it's sort of it's a little bit of a ho-hum piece so I can understand why they don't program it they're not going to program that and then do a Beethoven Sonata like that's insane but uh it's um you do it on the guitar and it becomes this like it's just filled with like ethereal Majesty it's per it's a beautiful and it has very little one of the uh yeah one of the Villalobos arrangements that Assad did

was I forget what it's called it's the one that goes da da dee da da da da yeah I don't know what it's called but you know what I'm talking about yeah that one doesn't sound like that on piano it's completely rearranged it's like really hard to sort of even figure out what what's going on there if you listen to the both things

But it's almost like interpreting language, right? When you interpret language, you don't just go word for word because you're going to be missing out on the essence of what the message is unless you...

so you have to constantly be reconciling what what you're doing when you're interpreting a language whether you're going note for note or whether you're having an understanding of the intent of the author which is what he is doing you know and it's it's sort of like when you're when you are doing these transcriptions which is such a large part not just of what you guys do but what every classical guitarist these days is doing

uh you know not these days so much there's a lot of like new composition going on which i'm really excited about i mean that's that to me is like what's happening right now but i'd say like 10 20 years ago it seems like transposition was sort of what we had to have that in our toolbox to be a successful uh not just successful but to be to be an artist with our instrument and um

I mean, as you know, Mark, with these arrangements and everything, you know that it also, it does sort of tap in to, you know, your ability to compose. Have you ever...

Have you composed, Mark or Chris? No, well, the funny thing is, well, Chris is the one who is, he's done some, well, Chris, you tell them about your compositions. Yes, please. I mean, it's very kind of you to say, but I basically in lockdown thought, because I'd always said that I'd always been, no, I'm not a composer. I'm not, I'm not. But we were told not to think that.

Yes, that's the point. And I think I'd always, I'd done some arrangements, not as prolifically as Mark had done. I just, I suppose it was a confidence thing. And then the lockdown came and I thought, I've got to learn to use Sibelius. This is ridiculous. I've always been fat. So I thought, best way is to write something. So I started writing and then I couldn't stop. And I have to say, I

I wrote a solo piece for Mark, which he's recorded and it's as I knew it would be. It's absolutely staggeringly good. And Matt, our engineer, liked it so much. Thanks to Mark's playing, I wrote a duo for us as well that the project's continuing. So there's going to be the next recording because we have an association with Armenia now because we run a festival in Armenia.

So we're going to do an album of Armenian folk songs and then some pieces I've written around those folk songs. And Mark's going to play three solos. We have the duo and then we have the folk songs. So it's going to be an album now that moves from

you know, the tradition of Armenian folk music to original pieces that have grown from that. But yeah, so, I mean, that just came again. It wasn't, it wasn't planned. It hasn't been. And Mark's been so kind. I wrote him a flute and guitar piece, which he's performed a couple of times. He's just been very, very generous. And the thing is, it's great. That's the other thing about you. I go, yeah, Mark, can you play that? And of course he can, which is great. And he can play it bloody well. Did you call Mark a lot about Sibelius or did you Google? Yeah.

I Googled it. I learned how to do it. I've got it. I've got it now. I can operate it now. Of course, it's all going over to Moose score. So I'm going to change that. But no, but Mark's been amazing support and sort of, and you know, it's, I,

I'm not making any comments on the pieces, but the whole thing, a bit like the recording has just been a pleasure to do. It's been another one of those journeys where you sort of learn something that's because obviously being a duetist and the chamber music, when we hit lockdown, it was like, I mean, I could play, of course, play some things, but I needed something else.

What's this about MuseScore now? Now, I started on MuseScore, and then I stopped, and I went to Sibelius because I tried to submit my MuseScore stuff to people, and they were like, we don't deal with MuseScore. So now it's back to MuseScore? Is this a thing? Well, Mark does. Well, I don't. I mean, I just started using it because I lost my Sibelius, so I did all this.

all arrangements and my my laptop this is just after lockdown and i my laptop was 10 years old and this macbook just kind of planked completely and i couldn't i get everything off it before i before it died so i lost things on there you know on this i've still got the computer and i'm somehow i'm going to give it to you know my kids are very good at uh doing computer stuff

Anyway, so I'm hoping they're going to try and root around in there and find it. But I lost my Sibelius. So I went on to MuseScore and then Chris was like, I've just learned how to use Sibelius. For God's sakes, like, can you just stay on one platform so we could just like do it? So anyway, but...

Chris's stuff has just been amazing. I mean, it's been a revelation, really, because Chris has just gone into this, you know, great composer mode in his time. He's just become prolific. He's written lots of pieces. Let's calm down there. Not quite prolific, but yeah, I've written a few pieces because there was nothing else, but...

A lot of music, Chris. I mean, it's amazing. I mean, a lot. I mean, it's great. But I like the fact that in a way, even though we were not planning to do this recording, it just makes so much sense when, you know, Matt Wadsworth just said, oh, I really love this and I love this because we were just recording some of it. And it just makes so much sense to just do the whole, all the Armenian influence stuff. That would be brilliant. So it's a great...

No, I'm sorry to interrupt. Let's talk about Armenia. So you guys are going there. That's where your festival is. What's the name of the festival?

Well, actually this week, Brett, we've just become a registered charity. So we've just now, we're an official charity called Play 2, and that's Play Together. And we've been going, Mark has been coming with us. We've been, I've been now, my wife is Armenian. We've been there, I've been to Yerevan about 23, 24 times. Mark's been out on many occasions and we've played concerts there. And last year we ran a festival together.

for 65 young players, classical players. And we basically go every year. We play a concert in the main concert hall there. And then the children do a big gala concert at the end of the week after being

It's your usual thing, but we're very focused on playing together. So the focus is on sort of chamber music, learning to respond, musical elements, because the range goes from sort of very early grades up to students who want to audition. And what we want to do when we hopefully if the charity works and we can fundraise and we want to be able to support, you know, kids that perhaps don't have the same

possibilities that we've had to actually maybe think of a career and also just to highlight. So yes, it's played to Armenia. The idea of play to is not to stick in Armenia. We could move around to any country anywhere depending on, you know, where the need is. But Armenia was a great starting point. So yeah, that's going to, we're carrying that on next year. That's great. That's always a good thing. So, I mean, it seems like, yeah, it seems like post-

It seems like your goals right now are to sort of

Well, I mean, in particular with Chris, and I don't mean this is, this is not a dig on Mark at all. Mark is doing all these, obviously. Mark, you did all the Scarlatti transcriptions as well? And the Mompo? Yeah, and the Mompo and the Scarlatti, yes. I'm not sure why I ended up doing all of those because Chris does lots of great arrangements. Well, your artsy-fartsy Chris friend starts all these charities and compositions. You're just sitting there plugging away while he dreams big.

No, no. Can I be clear about this? The charity is my wife. Yeah. Absolutely. Mark and I are artistic directors, which means we sit on our artists' arses. I'm just kidding. I think it's beautiful what you're doing.

I think the other thing, Mark has broken off in recent years and has been working with singer James Bowman and his flautist and done lots of performing projects and recording projects. I don't have that capacity to learn that much repertoire. I simply can't learn that much repertoire. I think that's my thing too. I think that's one of the reasons I compose is because I'm just not, yeah, I'm just not, like, I don't have that mind anymore.

I don't think I could sit there and transcribe that many Scarlattis and not just go insane. Yeah. I mean, I...

But I think it's a healthy what's happened. And I think this will be the interesting thing. And I think actually it's just a new phase. And I think you've got to allow everything just to keep moving in the direction it's going to. You can't hold on to anything. And I think that's why, hopefully, I mean, unless Mark's getting absolutely sick to death of it, I fully intend to carry on with projects and playing together and developing new ideas. Because it usually comes naturally. It usually just happens. And things usually click.

whether it's sort of Mark's arrangements or whatever, there's things that seem to just work in the end. It can take time, but I mean, we've never been sort of, we're not that worried about how many CDs we sell or onto the next CD. It's got to be right.

it's going to be the right time. But I think, I think we're both very motivated and very, we still have a real passion to practice. And we, we teach a lot as well, which is obviously something that we become more and more interested in. Yeah. I mean that the art of teaching is something that they don't teach us in school. And then as you get older, you learn it. And, and as you get older than that, you learn to appreciate what you've learned. And then you learn to appreciate students and that age or whatever age you're working with. And it's,

it becomes its own sort of thing. It's not something we set out to do, but it really is special, isn't it? Teaching and sort of having that ability to work with the kids. - Very important. - What schools are you guys at?

Well, I teach at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire. So I've been teaching there since 2004. So, you know, it's quite young starting there. But I mean, I feel kind of old now, but it's great. You know, what you were saying, teaching is a great way of kind of

You know, ideas you have as a musician and how you're developing your playing and things like that and how you teach it. So you see what you might have started with with like a sort of like a 1 direction for like playing or something like that. You suddenly see that doesn't fit for all the students, you know, so you have to help them.

Find a way. And that's that's actually really important. And I think that's then reflected back on probably both of us and like, you know, about how we develop again, you know, and change things and, you know, being more flexible. You know, I've learned an awful lot from my students, basically.

Are your students all classical guitar strictly students? Yeah, totally. Yeah. I mean, I don't really do any kind of other kind of styles at all. I mean, I teach at a very – here in Winchester, I also teach in a famous like kind of old –

uh school as well but it's again it's a much more recreational kind of guitar playing but i only do classical so you know it's uh it's nice but but birmingham is you know those students are there doing their bachelor's their master's occasional phd student that kind of thing so it's kind of high level stuff but it's it's um you know so it that's that's been great fun teaching there

Yeah. I mean, I suppose I, I think the instrument itself, I mean, I'm always now, uh, it's wonderful to see how it's, how not only the standard of playing has gone up, um, and the, the number of players now that are doing marvelous things is incredible. It's just becoming the norm now. And I think, I think there's more chamber music. I think there's more guitar and, and I think that's still more composition. Yeah. Yeah. More composition. Exactly. More people are writing for the instrument. And I think, uh,

I mean, it's got such an important role within general music. I think the one thing I would say, we've been very lucky with this because the lady we work with in the States is nothing to do with the guitar world. She's outside that. So all our concerts are not guitar concerts. They're outside that. Well, that's quite nice because it takes the pressure off completely. So you guys are more considered like a chamber music ensemble. Yeah. Like chamber music organizations rather than...

classical guitar societies. Okay, that makes sense. Which is really good for us in the sense that Lisa's a fantastic agent. She's got lots of contacts. She helped us find some really good concerts, but also we're giving concerts to non-guitar communities. Now, I love playing guitar communities, don't get me wrong, but it can be, you know, certainly our days of playing in big festivals in front of hundreds of, you know, young players waiting to hear your thing. I mean, that's a very, very difficult

you know, the GFA is a very, it's a, it's a, it's an intensive experience now because so many people, so it's quite nice. I quite enjoy the, just coming and playing a concert for a regular public. And I think, I think the guitar is,

it has to carry on finding its way into the world of general music in the classical world. I mean, in other styles, it's completely bond every other style, you know, it's at home in, in every other way, but with classical guitar, I mean, like Mark is working with singers, with flautists, with chain group, Sergio does a lot of this with, uh,

playing with other instruments. And I think as well as the, the, the, the solo, um, I think it's going to be interesting to see how other composers we've had a piece written for four guitars and saxophone. Uh, we, we, there's all sorts of, it sounds odd combinations, but there's all sorts of things you can do with the instrument because it's so portable. It's contrapuntal. It's got everything. Um, and it's got, as you know, the beautiful sound world. So, so I think,

I keep what we need now. We've got the players. We need composers. We need composers. It's becoming now something quite serious, and there's a lot of good things happening. The instruments are better. Everything has moved on so much in the last 30 or 40 years. It really has, and that's exactly the truth. It really does have kind of a brighter future than it did even 10 years ago.

And a lot of it has to do with, yeah, these players are coming of age. Now they're 30. These kids who have been brought up on pretty mature guitar methods. I'm 47. I wasn't. It was sort of just a hodgepodge until I had to figure everything out, right? Yeah. And you guys did too, to a degree, right? Yeah, totally.

What's going on with the next album? You guys have something coming out? We have two. That's right. That's what we were talking about. Tell me about the new two albums. The double album that's coming out. I mean, it's not a double album. It's two albums at the same time, but

What's going to happen? Well, the first one featuring Mark on three solos, and then we're going to be doing the Armenian. It's going to be called Invisible Guests. It's all based on Armenian folk music. So it's going to be original compositions and folk music, which is a bit of an accident, really. But we haven't got much left to do. So that'll be done in April. But the big one will be a celebration of Vida Presti, because it's a hundred year celebration, a sort of centenary since her birth.

And we couldn't let that go because she's obviously such, well, probably one of the greatest players that's ever lived. And their duo was, let's be honest, the first, I mean, the Abreus, obviously, but I think it's one of the first sort of important proper guitar duos. And so we're going to do an album of some of her music and some of the music inspired for them.

That's a great idea. That's a great idea. Keep the Presti Ligoya thing alive. I was just talking about them with somebody on their show. And it's it's they're such an important guitar duo. And there's not a lot of recordings. There's not. So it really does kind of fall on us to preserve that legacy, especially you guys as a, you know, as a preeminent guitar duo. Yeah.

Bless you. I'll send you the cash. I really enjoyed talking to you guys. Thanks for taking the time. Thank you, Brad. The new album released. Do you have a date for that album?

It's going to be the end of the year. The Armenian one will be next year, but because we want to get this one done before the end of this year, it'll be coming out in the autumn. So about November time. Wonderful. Wonderful talking to you guys. Thanks so much. Thank you. Thank you. Be safe. That does it for my time with Eden Stell. Make sure you check out their new album when it comes out and...

Make sure you go to brettwilliamsmusic.com slash support. That's B-R-E-T, williamsmusic.com slash support. Don't forget to go to Classical Guitar Corner for all your guitar learning needs. That's classicalguitarcorner.com as well as savageclassical.com, S-A-V-A-G-E, classical.com. Go there, tell them I sent you. I'll see you next time with Nicoletto Tedesco.

That's right. She's coming on the show. We're having somebody from New York on. Finally, it's time to get back home, folks. Nicoletta Tedesco next time. Thanks for joining me.