About Me
As one of Britain’s leading chamber music groups, the Aquarelle Guitar Quartet is a dynamic and innovative ensemble exploring the diversity of music for four guitars. Since their formation in 1999 the AGQ have performed extensively in major festivals including Buxton, Cheltenham, Ryedale, West Dean and Newbury Spring Festival and in venues including Wigmore Hall, St. Martin-in-the-Fields, London, St. David’s Hall, Cardiff and Bridgewater Hall, Manchester. They have also appeared as soloists with a number of orchestras throughout Britain performing Rodrigo’s concerto Andaluz and Torroba’s concerto Iberico for 4 guitars. Recent performances have taken them to the Euripedes Amphitheatre, Athens for a concert in the presence of the British Ambassador for Greece, to Heaton Park, Manchester where they appeared at the Last Night of the Proms and to Cheltenham for a live broadcast for ‘In Tune’ on Radio 3 as part of the Cheltenham Festival. In 2007 they were finalists in both the Royal Overseas League and Young Concert Artist's Trust competitions in London.
All members are graduates of the Royal Northern College of Music where they were the first guitar quartet to receive the Diploma in Professional Performance, RNCM’s highest performance award. The AGQ have received scholarships from the Musicians Benevolent Fund and the Tillett Trust to study abroad with renowned guitarists Sergio Assad and Oscar Ghilia. In November 2004, they toured Ireland performing in venues including the Helix, Dublin and Christchurch Cathedral, Waterford. In the same year, they were also selected from a number of ensembles as principal winners of the prestigious Tunnell Trust award, comprising of a series of recitals in Scotland in 2005/2006.
In addition to mainstream concerts, the AGQ have been involved in many outreach and educational projects. For a number of years they performed on the Live Music Now! young artists scheme, founded by Lord Menuhin, and they have given masterclasses in specialist music institutions including the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama and Cork School of Music.
In their programmes, the AGQ are dedicated to presenting works from around the globe that span from the renaissance to the present day. They have been sent works to perform by established international composers including Carlos Rafael Rivera (U.S.A), Phillip Houghton (Australia) and Stephen Dodgson (U.K) and have recently commissioned their first work from Brazilian composer Clarice Assad. The group are constantly expanding their repertoire with their own arrangements from various musical genres, including works by Villa-Lobos, Mussorgsky, Rossini, film music composer Ryuichi Sakamoto, and folk harpist Catriona McKay.
Their recordings include their debut CD Promenade, released in May 2005 and Watersmeet, a collaborative CD of Stephen Dodgson’s guitar music, released on the Cadenza label in March 2006.
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