Julian Bream

Julian Bream was born July 15, 1933 in Battersea, London. He is one of the greatest guitarists the world has ever known. By the time he was seventeen, although hehad not played outside Great Britain, he was already known by reputation to guitarists all over the world.He was brought up in a musical environment. His father, Harry Bream, a commercial artist and book illustrator, also ran a small dance band in which he played jazzguitar. The young Bream was very attracted to the jazz guitar style of Django Reinhardt, the legendary Gypsy guitarist. Bream's father encouraged hisson to play the piano, but also taught him to play the plectrum guitar. On his eleventh birthday, Julian Bream was given a classical guitar by his father.
In 1945 Julian Bream won a junior exhibition award for his piano playing. This entitled him to study the piano and the cello at the Royal College ofMusic, London. In the same year his father took him to play at a meeting held by the London Philharmonic Society of Guitarists, where his obviousmusical talent prompted Dr. Boris Perott, the Society's president, to offer to teach him the classical guitar. This he did for one year. Dr Perott, and alsoWilfrid Appleby, introduced Julian Bream to Andrés Segovia, who was so impressed by what he heard that he offered to give the thirteen-year old somelessons.
Julian Bream made his professional debut in Cheltenham in 1947. Encouraged by his father, he decided to make his career in music and the guitar,abandoning an almost equally strong ambition to become a professional cricketer. At the age of fifteen he was awarded a full scholarship at the RoyalCollege of Music, and for three years studied piano, harmony and composition there - for it was a time when no guitar tuition could be offered by theCollege.
Great critical acclaim greeted his debut in the Wigmore Hall, London, in 1951. Despite three years in the British Army (1952-55), he continued to appearfrequently on radio and television programmes as well as at public concerts. His first European tours took place in 1954 and 1955, and were followed byextensive touring in North America (beginning in 1958), the Far East, India, Australia, the Pacific Islands and other parts of the world. In addition tomasterclasses given in Canada and the USA, Bream has also conducted an international summer school in Wiltshire, England.
Julian Bream's many recordings for RCA have made him well known to a large worldwide audience and have won for him some of the highest awardsin the recording industry. They include the Award of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, two Grammy awards (1963 and 1966), and anEdison award (1968). In the Queen's Birthday Honours List of 1985 bc was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (C.B.E.).
Since 1952, when he played part of a Wigmore Hall recitai on the lute, Julian Bream has also been noted for his playing of this instrument, and isresponsible for bringing to light much of its music which had lain dormant for over three hundred years. He has also done much to broaden thecontemporary guitar repertoire by commissioning works from such famous composers as Benjamin Britten, William Walton, Hans Werner Henze, PeterRacine Fricker, Richard Rodney Bennett, Malcolm Arnold, Alan Rawsthorne, Lennox Berkeley and Michael Tippett. It is safe to say to that no guitaristhas ever done more to enrich the repertoire in this way.Bream's association with his fellow guitarist John Williams, which resulted in three recordings and a number of concerts, bas been an enormoussuccess. BBC Television have presented a special programme about Julian Bream's life as a concert guitarist, and also a series of four masterclassespresented by Bream for guitarists. Channel 4 Television produced a series of six half-hour programmes on the classical guitar by Bream, entitlediGuitarra! He retired in 2002.
In October 2003 was released a new DVD called 'Julian Bream - My Life in Music' in which we have the chance to hear (and see) him expressing in theirdetails the episodes of his life completely dedicated to the Music.